With my Uncle Chuck at Pheasant Acres Campground ~ Oct. 2008
Charles C. Kessler Jr., my Uncle Chuck, died this week after a long fight against cancer, about a month shy of his 69th birthday.
“Towsy” as my mom called him, lived peacefully with his wife Diana for the better part of two decades at Pheasant Acres, the campground he owned in Missouri’s Ozark Mountains. They moved there from Washington state after he did some soul-searching and decided that he wanted to retire in a peaceful place like the farm he worked on in his teenage years. He’d been around the world during his service in the Air Force, and when he found his niche in the rolling forests of St. James, MO, he said that there was nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.
I visited him there last fall during my road trip around the United States, and it struck me right away how content he seemed. I thought of Thoreau’s words:
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.
I don’t know many people who can say the same thing. I think my Uncle Chuck could.
After living with what he said was a big ego for most of his life, when he got to Missouri he gave himself “a check-up from the neck up” and sought to live with more grace and humility. He forgave some people he was holding grudges against, and tried to be a better person himself, easier to get along with.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, had an operation, and when it came back in 2007 his doctor told him it was not treatable, and he had about a year to live. He decided to keep battling his disease with prayer, homeopathic remedies, and a healthy lifestyle. He truly believed that he was on a path to “total recovery” with his faith to guide him. Considering his lack of any medical treatment options, he had nothing to lose. His own mostly holistic treatment methods bought him some time, and when his time came, he passed, I’m sure, the way he wanted to go.
Not long after the cancer returned, I asked him if he would consent to doing some taped interviews with me about his life. He protested a bit at first because he didn’t understand why I was interested in his memoirs. Moreover, he wasn’t the most expressive, loquacious man I knew, but he ultimately agreed. I think he was pleasantly surprised at how much he enjoyed our conversations, and the fact that I was recording them, as he said, “for posterity.” He’d always meant to start keeping a journal of some sort, but never did get around to it, so he supposed this audio diary would suffice.
He told me all about his life, and at the end of what amounted to more than five hours of talking, I asked him what advice he had for younger folks – his kids, me, his grandkids, etc. – after all his years. “The hard part about a death sentence,” he said,” is it’s the people you leave behind who hurt.”
He didn’t like the word advice, and preferred instead to share some key reflections: “You should keep it simple. When we try to make things complex in our lives, when we try to have reasons for everything, it’s not a good thing. We need to just let life take us where it’s going to take us. You’ve got to create inner peace somehow. You’ve got to be at peace with yourself, the world, and especially with God.”
In other words, practice being content. My mother, Chuck’s sister, says this to me on a regular basis, and I think it’s a good suggestion regardless of how much people differ in terms of what makes us content.
My Uncle Chuck believed that fear is a good motivator, that it can be inspiring. I asked him if he was happy, and he said, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.” He also told me he wasn’t afraid to die, and he had God to thank for that.
I do not share my uncle’s deep faith, but regardless of our spiritual differences, I have learned much from his example of how to live a good life: pursue with determination those things which give you inner peace and contentment, and whatever purpose for which you believe you were made.
Goodbye Uncle Chuck. Thank you, and may you rest in peace.
Shannon,
This is lovely, Your Uncle Chuck would have enjoyed reading it. I’m going to print it out, if that is ok with you, and save for his grandsons to read some day when they start asking questions like What was papa like and tell me about papa. This will be one more story to tell. Thank you.
Diana
Of course! Absolutely!