Big Life

My Uncle John was one of six siblings, the second oldest, the only fat one and my favorite. For 50 years I heard that if he didn’t lose weight he was going to die. This was an official family opinion, expressed one thousand times, yet I am unaware of John ever attempting a diet. He ate what he wanted and smoked cigars. His brothers and sisters shook their heads, wagged their skinny fingers and bided their time. When John died at ninety, still fat, the surviving siblings gathered for his wake and said to the rest of us, “You see.”

Photo credit: Goodfellas Cigar Shop