Farewell Uncle Tom

My very first shift as a student nurse in the ER found me in the back of an ambulance with a drunk and unhappy biker gang member who had lost control of his vehicle resulting in a traumatic leg amputation. In the years of ER nursing that followed, biker gang members taught me much about head injuries, motor vehicle accidents, drug overdoses, stab and gunshot wounds and handling altered armed individuals who were usually twice my size.

It was only a few days after the possession of our current home that it became apparent that our closest neighbour was a biker. Tom clued in pretty quickly that a doctor had moved in next door and introduced himself wearing a t-shirt which read: "I'm not a doctor but I'll take a look anyway". And so began our unlikely and wonderful friendship that ended this week when Tom lost his battle with cancer.

In most of the years we knew Tom, he was retired from the auto industry leaving him countless hours to get into trouble. He smoked everything, planted marijuana in his grandmother's garden, drank himself into DT's, and burned down the neighbours garage. He loved his motorbike and black lab more than anything on earth and tried really hard to play the tough loner. Tom and women were like nitro and glycerin...it always worked out badly, sometimes explosively and he swore he would never marry or have a family.

Over the years, Tom's biker friends began to greet us with familiarity...reaching over the fence to pet the dogs, or offering advice on my perennial flower garden. Donny, my favorite of his friends, was also a schnauzer lover and when he lost his little dog, he had to take a week off work to grieve. On the day Donny was diagnosed with liver cancer, he was at my front door asking if he could hold Sophie and Bella for awhile.

Ultimately, Tom became our unofficial neighbourhood watch guy. He had a key to our house and if the dogs were barking or upset, he would come in and calm them down. If anything unusual was happening around the neighbourhood, Tom knew about it and kept us informed. Tom's little cottage of a house had a sagging roof and no basement so each time there was a tornado watch we had to convince him to take our dogs down the basement so they wouldn't be afraid...and he wouldn't blow away. He loved his little house and swore if he ever won the lottery, he'd buy the mansion across the street and knock it down so he could see the river from his place.

When we adopted our girls, Tom decided he would be their uncle and he never missed a chance to give them gifts on special occasions or their birthdays. He was always resistant to receiving gifts or assistance and as his cancer progressed he would give us hell for making him protein drinks or dropping groceries by. However, in the last year of his life, it became apparent how many people in our neighbourhood and beyond really cared about Tom, and how much he had been a friend to people from all walks of life.

This week the dogs are moping around the fence awaiting Tom's daily treat and my girls are trying to wrap their minds around the idea of not seeing him again. I am left feeling relieved that his pain has come to an end and ever thankful for his friendship. Who knew this crazy biker dude could teach us so much about living on the edge, taking a chance, not judging a book by its cover. I think that heaven awaits our wonderful hells angel.