It’s one of the most maudlin clichés in all of holiday fiction: The naïve kid who gets to sit on Santa’s lap, only to reveal that all he wants is to have some recently deceased relative back. This year, we lost my Uncle Bert. He wasn’t a blood relation, but a friend of the family so dear that we had always treated him like one. In addition to being one of the warmest and most loving people I’ve ever met, he was also a fascinating, well-rounded guy: a connoisseur of old movies and the opera; a lover of dogs; a side-splitting impressionist; a celebrated teacher; and an accomplished stage actor. One photo he left us shows him posing in costume from of his favorite roles: Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. He was also a devout Catholic. Whenever he came to visit us in Florida, my parents would drive him to mass. It wasn’t our faith, but they were happy to oblige. Were his religion responsible for even one-tenth the wonderful man he was, I think they would have taken him halfway across the globe to replenish it. His death last July was mercifully swift and painless. […]
The post A man for all seasons: The audacity of Pope appeared first on Orlando Weekly Blogs.
