“Uncle D,” Donald Sweeney
This piece was first written for a memoir group in June 2023.
I want to tell a story about about my Uncle D, as he was known in my family.
2000 was my first December in Washington, DC, and therefore, my first office holiday party inside the Beltway.
I was fresh out of graduate school, in my first career job, and my boss had joked with me to keep a level head (in other words, don’t get drunk), because DC was a small place, and you never knew who might be at the holiday party…
She had tales galore of running into politicians and diplomats and journalists at holiday parties — although I don’t imagine THEY abstained from the party booze. But I would. And that was fine — while I am not sober, I also wasn’t much of a drinker.
This particular party was a small one, at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a think tank I worked with on one of my projects. It was held right in their office suite in Dupont Circle: cheerfully decorated cookies on a platter, and trays of cheese and cold cuts and a lot of beer and wine (keep a level head!).
I arrived early and so was helping my colleague set some of it up when the heavy door to the suite swung open. One of the senior researchers appeared, along with her husband, and another middle-aged man in a light brown suit. I thought he must be a civil servant, though I don’t know why: glasses, medium build, nondescript like the many lawyers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, executives around town.
Still, he looked so familiar for some reason. He must have noticed my stare, because smiled at me slightly, distant and polite, and then I gasped.
“Uncle D?!” I exclaimed.
His polite smile turned to surprise. It was in fact my Uncle Donald, known in the family as “D” or “D-Boy.” My use of the nickname cracked up the folks he was with, but man, if they only knew. Weird nicknames, usually born out of rhyming or abbreviations of other nicknames, were common on that side of the family.
“Caryn Anne Sweeney!” he said. “What are you doing here?”
My Uncle D is my dad’s older brother. I didn’t know him very well growing up, even though he lived closest to us at about five hours away in Missouri. I saw him more when I was little: I have a memory of going to a zoo with him and his girlfriend Cathy once, and of meeting him at the Gateway Arch. One particularly memory that stands out is of visiting him when my dad built him a waterbed and brought it to install in his apartment. He had a cat that had kittens when we were there, so I remembered him as “the uncle who loved cats.” Though later he explained were his girlfriend’s and he actually hated them.
I wasn’t convinced. He pretended to dislike a lot of things, but there was a big softy in there.
Uncle D was pretty accomplished. He had studied mathematics at Knox College and got his PhD in economics from Washington University. He had an important job as, well, a civil servant. He was an economist with the Army Corps of Engineers, working on the locks and water management of the Mississippi River. That day, he was in DC to testify before Congress and accept an award for blowing the whistle on Army leadership who were trying to falsify data in favor of a massive and potentially damaging project.
We quickly brought each other up to speed. His attorney who helped him through the backlash from Army Corps leadership was married to Jane, on staff of the think tank I worked with, and she had invited him to tag along to the party. My boss had been right about DC holiday parties — it is a very small world.
I told him about my new job, coordinating higher education programs internationally and how I had finished my Master’s degree. “Good job,” he said. “I knew you were one of the smart ones. But this nonprofit — are they paying you okay?”
I assured him they were.
As I grabbed him a beer from the cooler, nervously not even looking to see which one I grabbed, we kept chatting. I was very aware that this was probably the first time we were meeting grown-up to grown-up.
I wondered what he was thinking — my dad, his brother, had died just a few years earlier, and now here he was, sharing a beer with his oldest niece or nephew by far. Some of my fellow Sweeney cousins were still in diapers, or not even born. My curiosity was never going to be rewarded, though. He’s always been pretty matter-of-fact and not prone to sentimentality. At least to me.
As we talked, he told me that he was going to become a professor now, through some sort of arrangement following the Army Corps situation. That made sense. I’m not sure I have ever known someone more professorial than my Uncle D.
I’ve enjoyed spending time with him at family functions over the years. We would talk about going after funding or research questions. His two sons, my cousins Cameron and Kevin, have both spent time living in DC so there was additional opportunity from time to time. On one of the more recent visits, Uncle D looked around and said a bit gruffly, “you’ve done alright for yourself! I like your apartment.”
That was high praise, from him, and I still hold it as such.
I’m reflecting on this today because earlier this afternoon, I received a text message from him. It was to our family group text that started after Grandma died in 2020: the five living siblings, and me, my dad’s oldest, somehow slotted into his place. Sometimes I joke about wanting to go back to the kid’s table but it’s still really meaningful to maintain this connection.
Anyway, the text message read:
“Family: I have some unfortunate news to report. I have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I am about to be released from St. Luke’s hospital today to begin a course of chemo with my oncologist. I expect to have more details this afternoon and will update you later when I know more.”
Then: “Stage IV. Cure unlikely. Goal is to extend and improve quality of life.”
Numbers and facts.
To which one of us replied: “What does that mean?!”
Him: “Means that a cure is not likely but it is possible to shrink the tumors and extend and improve my quality of life.”
I know him well enough to know he was messing with us a little, but I am still sad. Of course, I am sad. Aside from my dad, that side of the family has gone strong — my grandma dying at 90, everyone else still alive and relatively healthy. I always knew my dad’s siblings would eventually face mortality — as will my own siblings, and me and everyone, of course — but knowing this doesn’t make it any easier.
The next reply to that was to the point: “extend how long?”
His response: “I do not know the answer to that question.”
This may be the first time I have ever heard Uncle D admit he couldn’t answer a question.
—
Update: On November 18, 2023 we learned the answer to that question. May you rest in peace, Donald C. Sweeney the Second.