The Man Who Made Me Laugh

I wrote this story in the Winter of 2021 for a nonfiction narratives seminar. It recounts my (few) memories of my great-uncle George, whom had a deep impact on the man I would become.

Within the cozy upstate New York home where my grandparents live, it seems as though there is a family photo in sight at all times. Judy and James MacDonald have a large and loving family—and it shows. Photos of themselves, their children, grandchildren, parents, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, and other relatives unknown to me adorn walls and shelves in every room of the two-story house.

In the guest bedroom on the second floor—aptly referred to as the “blue room” due to the color of its walls—there is a photograph on the dresser that always catches my eye. Four people, all smiling, stand in front of a ferry docked at an unknown harbor. Three of their faces are instantly familiar to me: my grandparents, Judy and James, and my great-aunt Pam. The fourth face—the man standing next to Pam—is foreign to me, but I know who he is, too. George Bell, Pam’s husband. My great-uncle.

When I think of him, I remember laughing.

I remember how he would lift me up and swing me around and throw me over his shoulder; How he would toss me onto the couch with ease and flutter his fingers on my neck, in my armpits, behind my knees; How I would laugh, laugh harder than I had ever laughed before, laughed to the point that I would cry. Without a photo in front of me, I can’t remember his face. But I can remember laughing vividly.

I’m sure we had conversations, too, whatever it is a 60-something-year-old discusses with a 6-year-old. We probably talked about the first grade or my promising career ahead in rec soccer or what I had learned from my new book about dinosaurs. I know we had to have talked, but I cannot hear his voice.

I only remember how he would make me laugh and how, every now and then, he would disappear.

I remember searching for him, for the man who made me laugh, navigating from the family room to the kitchen to the basement to the garage to the backyard. I remember how I would find him, standing alone under the single floodlight that hung above the garage door, smoking a cigarette. Once I found him, I’m sure we would have talked, but I can’t remember what about.

I can remember being 8 years old when my father and I arrived home from my soccer game to find my mother and sister crying on the sofa. I remember being confused and scared, and I remember being told that my great-uncle George, the man who made me laugh, had died.

Lung cancer is a hard thing to explain to a child. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned that George Bell’s death was not as much of a shock to everyone else as it was to me; That the man who brought me nothing but joy, who made me laugh harder than I had ever laughed before, was sick the entire time I had known him.

Yet all these years later, when his name comes up at family gatherings, we never talk about George’s cancer or death. When we talk about George, there’s only smiles and laughter. As I’ve grown older and heard more stories about my great-uncle, a more complete picture of the man who made me laugh has developed in my mind.

He was also the man who was unafraid to start a conversation with complete strangers. The man who wanted to stay busy after retirement, so he became a security guard to fill his time. The man who always had a story to tell. After all these years, my few fond memories have remained unscathed. If anything, I’ve grown to appreciate them more—it’s all I have to remember him by, but at least I have something to remember him by.

Within the cozy upstate New York home where my grandparents live, when I find myself in the guest bedroom on the second floor looking at that photograph on the dresser, at that man whose face is unfamiliar and whose voice I cannot hear, I remember laughing, and I can’t help but smile.