The slow disappearance

CTE, memory, and the stories that built my uncle

“The good stuff’s already gone—it’s not in that casket over there.

He lives with us now, in us.”

My uncle died today.

Technically, a few hours ago. But in truth, I lost him years ago—to the slow erosion of something we didn’t yet have words for.

He was my favorite relative growing up. The kind of man you wanted to be near.

He told stories like he was weaving rope out of air—going five tangents deep and still landing the punchline right where he started.

I used to call it bookmarking.

He’d talk about growing up, about football and wrestling practice, about the house projects he built with his own hands. But it was never about the accomplishments themselves—it was about the lessons he learned and the relationships he built.

He was the captain of both teams in high school—a state-recognized athlete—and he carried that same drive into everything he did.

The builder

Twenty-five years ago, he started a home-renovation business. No capital, no safety net.

Just grit, curiosity, and the kind of charisma that makes people believe in your work before it exists.

It thrived.

He became a landlord.

His son took over the business.

He built not just homes, but a small ecosystem of people who genuinely cared about one another.

And still, if you asked him what he was proudest of, it was never the business.

It was the people. The laughter. The wild, unpredictable thing we call life.

The words that echo

When my grandfather died, my uncle came up to me and said,

“The good stuff’s already gone—it’s not in that casket over there.

He lives with us now, in us.

In our memories and the lessons he taught us.”

Those words haunted me two months ago, when he landed in the hospital.

They kept circling my mind, like a riddle I wasn’t ready to understand.

Last night, my brother texted me out of nowhere, and I got this strange, full-body knowing: Uncle John’s dying.

This evening, my sister texted one word: sup.

Before I even opened it, I knew.

Not ten minutes later, she confirmed it.

She’d seen him yesterday—his breathing erratic, movements involuntary.

Like something out of a movie, she said.

Brain injuries turn the body into a stage for something we can’t quite see.

Something holy, maybe. Or cruel. Probably both.

The storyteller

He loved to laugh. Especially when telling stories about our grandfather, who nearly became a priest but left the seminary because of “funny stuff.”

(We all suspected the same thing. Catholic priests—need I say more?)

He’d tell those stories whenever the room got too heavy.

He knew the power of humor, of remembering joy out loud.

He told stories about his crew—the weird jobs they pulled off, the jokes they cracked.

Stories about his kids.

Like the time he drove my cousin Molly back to college and she pretended to sleep just to get a break from the talking.

Later, she wrote a paper about that car ride—analyzing his communication patterns and realizing how deeply they mirrored her own.

He was so proud of her.

That was who he was:

someone who found meaning in the smallest, most human exchanges.

Someone who understood that love is built in the in-between moments.

The erosion

While I miss my uncle—and have, for five years now—I also know he lived a good life.

He loved and was loved.

He built something lasting.

He wouldn’t take back a single football game, a single wrestling match, a single hard day on the job.

He was proud of the bruises, because they were proof he showed up.

And that’s the heartbreak of CTE.

It’s not just a disease—it’s a form of remembering gone wrong.

What is CTE?

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) develops after years of repeated blows to the head (sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands).

Not concussions alone, but the subconcussive hits that never get counted.

Over time, the brain’s tau proteins twist and tangle, slowly choking off the neural networks that hold memory, mood, and identity together.

It’s not cinematic. It’s erosion.

First the memory slips, then the personality, then the light behind the eyes.

And the cruelest part?

It comes for the very people who built their lives on endurance—the ones taught to “get back in the game.”

My uncle never regretted that life.

But it breaks something in me to know that the same discipline that built his life eventually dismantled his mind.

The collective ache

Lately, it feels like death is everywhere.

A third of those I work with right now are grieving or preparing to grieve—

a loved one with cancer, a parent fading into dementia, a sudden loss that upends a family.

Even outside my work, the pattern echoes.

A childhood friend just lost both parents—forty-five and forty-six. Gone within months of each other, from completely unrelated causes.

It’s as if the veil has thinned and everyone I know is brushing against it.

My uncle was only sixty-seven. That’s not old enough to have run out of stories.

Maybe that’s why it feels like we’re all walking through the same fog—my clients, my family, me.

Grief isn’t just personal; it’s cultural.

It’s in the air we breathe.

The moon

Tonight, I stepped outside and saw the moon—enormous, encircled by a halo so bright it looked like the sky was remembering itself.

The full moon arrives less than twelve hours after his passing. Just days past Halloween.

In many traditions, the November full moon—the Beaver Moon—symbolizes preparation, reflection, and the quiet work of building what’s to come.

How fitting.

The builder Irish-goodbyed just before the moon that practically symbolizes renovation.

I guess I have to find the humor in that.

The study of souls

I’m learning more about CTE now. I’m already established with a training program for a Certified Brain Injury Specialist credential next year—MA, MSW, LCSW, CBIS.

(Yeah, I still list my MA. I hauled ass in crutches for it.)

But right now, I’m not studying it to diagnose or label.

I’m studying it because I want to understand what happens to a soul when the scaffolding of memory collapses.

When personality becomes patchwork.

When the storyteller forgets his own thread.

“The good stuff’s already gone.”

Maybe he was half-right.

The body goes. The scaffolding crumbles.

But the good stuff—the laughter, the cadence, the way he looped a story back around—

that’s still here.

Still alive, somewhere inside me.

Bookmarking its way back to the punchline.

Anyway…

If you’ve only heard of CTE through soundbites or satire, look deeper.

It’s real. It’s devastating.

And it’s quietly shaping families everywhere—athletes, veterans, laborers, people whose worth was measured by how much they could endure.

If someone you love is changing in ways that don’t make sense—angry, paranoid, confused, disoriented—don’t assume it’s “just aging.”

Learn. Ask. Listen.

Sometimes, survival rewrites the brain.

Sometimes, love has to learn a new language.

And if you’re moving through a season where loss seems to cluster—like the universe is pruning all at once—remember: you’re not cursed, you’re connected.

We grieve in chorus.

The good stuff isn’t gone.

It’s just shifting shape, waiting for us to tell the story that brings it home.

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Xoxo Ollie