Noel lived in the basement of my parents' beach house while we lived upstairs for ten months before we moved to Alaska. He is the reason we were able to live unemployed out of college for ten months. He taught us how to revamp things found in thrift stores and that's how we made our money (we didn't make money in 10 months, but we didn't lose money either). Remember the dining room table Tom refinished? He taught us the best way to do all that. I'm glad we got to spend so much time with him before his diagnosis.
He worried that Celia wouldn't remember him when we moved away and she grew up. He came upstairs every morning and waved his hands frantically and said: "Hi baby!" But he told me his plan was to make a giant red dot that he would carry upstairs every morning so that somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd remember a big dot of a great uncle emerging from the basement. Though he never put it into action, the image stuck for me. And that's how I'll always imagine him.
So long Noel. Thanks for everything. And red dot or not, you'll always be remembered.
And ironically, this picture (doctored up by Noel himself) is one of my favorite pictures of him. Notice a giant dot?
1 comment:
So so sorry.
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