Uncle Nelu Has Gone to Heaven

Uncle Nelu, March 2021
With his youngest sister, Elena

Mom’s youngest brother, Ion Ilie, died on December 18, 2021, on his son’s 40th birthday. Uncle Nelu died in a hospice from the stroke he suffered two months ago.

Nelu was born in 1940, a child who experienced the German occupation of the village and the communist occupation later. He was a child but had vivid memories of those times. The communist party did not see him in a positive light as nobody in our family was a member of the communist party or aspired to be one, they supported the monarchy and the times when the country was rich, and the people were self-sufficient and happy.

Mom and I talked to Uncle Nelu two months ago on a warm October 18 morning, on the patio of her nursing home. It was amazing how clear, cheerful, and happy his voice sounded. He had just returned from the grocery store, pushing his little cart of supplies.

At 81, he was vigorous enough to walk quite far to the local grocery store, to bring back food to his ailing wife who can barely walk and has not left their fifth floor Bucharest apartment in two years.

He told my mom that day that he had just had his booster Covid-19 shot and we should do the same as soon as possible. We talked about family, health, and the latest news.

It is amazing how a tiny cell phone could connect us from anywhere in the world outside on the patio and cheaply. We have cheap, fast, and reliable technology now but there are fewer and fewer relatives to whom we can talk.

There was a time when making a call was awfully expensive per minute, few people could afford it, it was time consuming, and required the intercession of an overseas operator, and sometimes 24 hours to make a connection that did not sound garbled like we were speaking from a barrel at the bottom of the ocean.

There was also a time, thirty years ago, when all phone calls under communism were listened to by a human being who decided whether the call was important enough to record and file on record for later use. Now, they record everything automatically in that mythical I-cloud in the sky.

Uncle Nelu had a “vascular accident,” meaning a blood clot to his brain, a few days following his booster. Due to his age and the benign tumor removed from his brain ten years prior, it was easy to assume that his stroke was a natural occurrence. But it was so close to his Covid-19 booster that one must wonder. He clung to life for two months, paralyzed on one side.

Ion Ilie was a remarkable person who completed his engineering degree while working part-time as a mechanic. Grandpa Ilie had taught him how to be the outstanding mechanic who could fix anything.

Recognizing a natural talent, Grandpa Ilie devoted more time and monetary investment to his youngest son who had the gift of invention. His extensive list of accomplishments fills the government files dedicated to his engineering life.

Sadly, he never climbed to the top; his non-communist background became an issue for the communists in power who decided the fate of those working and creating engineering marvels in their communist machine. He was a useful cog but not worthy of promotions.

Uncle Nelu made Christmas magical for me when I was 17 years old. Painstakingly he wired and soldered a hundred or more tiny white bulbs with thin copper strands who fell down the branches of the blue spruce tree like a cascade of moving lights, controlled by a relay.

His engineering skills were so exceptional that he was often called upon by appellate judges to make decisions and testify about accidents he investigated. His painstaking measurements and technical analysis often decided the outcome of a trial and the fate of those involved in terrible industrial and road accidents.

Uncle Nelu helped many people in our extended family with advice, volunteer work, money, and emotional support.

He visited us twice in 1990 while we lived in the southern U.S. I flew with him to San Diego, to show him the western side of this beautiful country and we took a day trip to Tijuana, Mexico. He was fifty years old, full of life, jocular, sun-tanned, tall, and was confused for a Mexican even though he spoke no Spanish and no English. We laughed about it because we were prepared and brought our passports with us to cross the border from Mexico back into the U.S.

The world has lost another brilliant mind. He will be sorely missed by our family.

I personally hope he is in Heaven, advising God on how to fix his engines.

NOTE: Uncle Nelu never cared much for my writing because, he said, what good is it, nobody in Romania can read English, why don't you write it in Romanian? 

My answer to him was, because Romanians have already experienced what I am writing about, I would be preaching to the choir.