There was this time you teased me.
Taunted me and made me cry,
But I still came chasing after you;
Without ever knowing why.
You were my only playmate.
The first real friend I ever had.
You were the one who entertained me;
And the one who made me mad,
But I appreciated everything you did,
Even if back then I didn’t quite seem to.
You were a little bit my hero;
In case you never knew.
Then there came the time my teen years,
Put a twist in our regard;
Making what we shared so easily,
Suddenly seem hard.
The companion I took for granted,
To be forever in my home;
Left the happy nest we shared,
To start a life all of his own.
Still I watched you from a distance,
And I yearned for all we used to do.
Your daily presence sorely missed,
In case you never knew.
Time mended all those fences.
What I felt never was too hard to say.
Picked right up where we left off,
As though we’d never been away.
You’re still the one I come to,
When I feel lonely or insane.
Only we share a lot more laughter,
And we share a lot more pain.
I was half the drive to Michigan,
When by cell I got a call from you.
I cried all the way to Indiana,
Just in case you never knew
You still tease and still torment me.
Sometimes you still make me cry.
Only now you hug the tears away,
And we both see eye to eye.
For all the games we played,
And all the jokes that we shared too;
You managed to teach me how to grow,
In case you never knew.
For my uncle Joe, who was always more of a brother than an uncle.
Sometimes that was good and sometimes I didn’t realize how good that was.
May 1, 2005
