Week seven blog

 The day I discovered that my uncle had been diagnosed with lung cancer, I was on my third deployment to Iraq. On my days off I would take the time to call the whole family. When I called my parents they told the bad news and I was in shock. My uncle never smoked in his whole life. Not knowing on what to do when I got off the phone, I went straight to my platoon sergeant and told him the news.  I was hoping that I would be sent home to spend the rest of his days with him; my uncle had less than a year to live. Having the feeling that I wasn’t going to be there went the moment came made me fill worthless. Since the army policy was that only immediate family where soldiers allowed going home on emergency leave, my platoon sergeant decided to give me a couple of days off to get my thoughts straight. So I decide to move my R&R leave to a future day just in case that moment came, since I was one the first ones to take R&R. Months where eating up my chances of seeing him, finally we were down to our last three months in Iraq. The window for R&R was closing down, so I had to take my R&R before it closed down. On September I took my R&R and spent it with my uncle. When I first saw him I didn’t know if I should react with joy of seeing him or just burst in tears. So I decided to just start to talk to him with a normal conversation and our conversation made him feel good because he didn’t like the pity. We were remembering of all the good times we had together. My uncle had asked me if I would be the godfather of his son, who at the time was three years old. I agreed to it and we went ahead and baptized my godson. So for the next two weeks, I would be by his side, and when the time came for me to leave it was really hard knowing that maybe it was the last time I was going to see him. When I got back Iraq to finish my deployment, we stayed in constant contact. We got back in December of 2009. A few weeks after we got back he passed away, and I thank god that I was able to be there.