He gave me so much. I believe the most powerful lesson he taught me is that people, including men, can change. He changed himself. Giving up drinking and choosing a journey towards healing that goes along with that.
He came to the baby presentation of my firstborn. Eighteen years ago now. To see his great-grand niece. He drove clean over to the Olympic Peninsula from Seattle and bounded into the house full of life and energy. He was the first guest, out of dozens, to arrive that day. Uncle Dave took one look at the punch bowl set up on the table and said, “I won’t have any of that if there is booze in there. I quit drinking”. My husband and I laughed as we had too. There was no booze in that bowl and all three of us had some of that punch and celebrated life together.
Toward the end of his life, my Uncle Dave dealt with much pain. Cancer can be cruel like that. Even so, Uncle Dave was adamant about maintaining his sobriety.
It is a comfort to know that at the very end, he was pain-free. My mother told me that. She was there.
I remember Uncle Dave, the last time I saw him, standing in front of the doorway to his Sequim home, barefoot and wearing a Carhartt T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. He looked tanned, fit, and had been obviously working in his yard. He invited me in for a visit and I declined because, I told him, I had Cub Scouts in the van and I needed to get them to a meeting. He mentioned maybe we could get together for a BBQ. We agreed that would be good. Then, I told him what I was there to say.
I told my Uncle Dave that I was grateful that he was part of my life. I thanked him for being a role model for my son. He laughed that off saying he didn’t know about that. He told me he did not think he was much of a role model. I respectfully, in that moment, disagreed with him.
The old Lionel train set he gave our family for Christmas, the last Winter his mother was alive, has been brought upstairs. I will never forget the Christmas card he wrote us and how he read it out-loud to us that day, about how that train was a big part of his childhood. He wrote about how every Christmas and birthday a new train car or railway piece was added. He wrote how proud he and his father were to work on that train together. That train was a big part of the Brueckner family tradition.
Uncle Dave celebrating Christmas at Grandma Brueckner’s house in 2012
It became a tradition in our family, to have Uncle Dave check out a car or truck before it was purchased. He was a master mechanic. The other day, when I heard my husband start up our 1972 Ford F-250 truck, I felt Uncle Dave was near, in spirit. He listened closely to that balanced 390 engine before we bought the truck. Took it for a drive with us. He did not really tell us whether to buy it or not. Just mentioned if he were us he wouldn’t worry too much about the gas prices and maybe to put a theft alarm on it. So, of course, we bought it.
Uncle Dave was a Ford man, a Chevy man, a Buick man, a Pontiac man…a man’s man. He loved mechanical things, all kinds of cars and trucks.
Uncle Dave enjoyed showing our boy some of his rigs. A Corvette amongst others. Immaculately maintained.
He showed our family his nurturing side. It was there all along and showed in the kind things he did for his family when his girls were growing up. I remember him keeping the property maintained at the “Lake House” out at Lake Sutherland.
I remember when he put power brakes and power steering in my grandfather’s cherished red Ford Ranchero.
It must have taken a great deal of courage for Uncle Dave to give up drinking. Just as he was able to rebuild cars, to make them better, he rebuilt himself. He more fully embraced his nurturing side.
I watched Uncle Dave buckle two very large teddy bears into the back seat of his Cadillac on the last evening that the Brueckner clan gathered at the home his parents had built in Port Angeles. He had given the two teddy bears to his twin grand-daughters. When I made a comment about him putting safety belts on the bears, Uncle Dave said it was because he wanted to show the girls that it was important to be safe. It was easy to see how delighted he was to be a grandfather.
I think it touched Uncle Dave, also, to have a grandson who will also carry on the Brueckner name. One of his favorite phrases in recent years was, “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“A work in progress”, Uncle Dave described himself often followed by the words of, “Giving back”.
The legacy my Uncle Dave has left our family is the importance of “Giving Back”.
In order to give back, fully, requires forgiveness. So Uncle Dave left us with that legacy also.
It is hard. Forgiving him for leaving us. For leaving us too soon.
Uncle Dave became a role model for my son. He will be remembered for his strong work ethic and caring for others. In giving up drinking, he had discovered a path toward being more present and whole.
Whole. That is how I remember him. He was a true gentleman.
Integration 