My uncle died today

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2016 hasn't been the best year, a lot of my favorite actors are dying, and my son has already been sick a few times, along with a bunch of other stuff I won't get into. It's all out of my control, but today I would have to say has been the worst day of 2016 for me. I was informed today my uncle died. My uncle has been in my life since day one, but he wasn't your typical uncle who could take care of himself or joke around with you. My uncle had cerebral palsy, and possibly some other conditions due to my grandma's RH negative blood type, and back when he was born they didn't have the shots they give now. My grandma had 16 children and buried 8 of them shortly after they were born due to this blood type, and my uncle was the only one of the surviving 8 to have the problems he had. They told my grandma that he would die before he even turned 5 years old, and he just kept on surviving. At one point they wanted to take my uncle from my grandma and put him in a home, and after that my grandma was super protective of him. She took care of him until she died, after that my mom and aunt took care of him for a long time before it became too much and they had to put him in a nursing home. They've been telling us he wasn't going to make it several times over the years, and he always managed to pull through and keep on surviving, so part of me believed that that's what would happen today, but it didn't, and I honestly don't know how to feel. Part of me is happy he is no longer in pain. He's fought so hard to survive, and now he finally gets to rest and be pain free. He has always surpassed every expectation people put on him. My uncle couldn't walk, talk, or hear, but somehow he always knew things, and he could communicate his needs quite clearly despite all of that. We never actually knew how much he knew. We'd always find him with a book, and not picture books, but the bible or some other book, and he seemed to understand with clarity what was going on, and we have no clue how he knew, because he couldn't hear, so we weren't sure how he knew things, but he just did. We to this day have no clue whether or not he actually knew how to read. A doctor once told us that he was highly intelligent, and had he been worked with he probably would have been able to do a lot more than he was doing. I remember as a kid I used to go over to my grandma's house barefoot, and my uncle had this thing where he believed everyone should wear socks up past their knees, despite the fact that he was the only one who did this. He would holler and then point to his feet then to mine and then point towards my house telling me to go home and put socks on, he also did this if he felt my socks weren't long enough. He once pulled socks out of his drawer and threw them at me and pointed to my feet. He was living proof you didn't have to talk to get your point across. Once when my mom was visiting him at the nursing home he yelled at my mom for not having socks on (keep in mind this was in the summer) and then got his socks out and took her leg and put it up clear over her head and tried to put socks on her. My uncle also loved Fonzie and he drank from this Fonzie mug and he'd always do the two thumbs up at people, and we'd do it back. He would also make us feel his head after he got it shaved. He used to scoot around on the floor up until he got a wheel chair which didn't happen until he was much older. He also loved his Rally's french fries and milkshakes. He had a loud goofy laugh and big goofy smile, that's how I always want to remember him. I didn't want to see him today when I learned he probably wouldn't make it, because I wanted to remember him happy, and not in pain. I have spent the majority of my life around my uncle. When I was 10 my aunt used to have me watch him for an hour or so while she did some errands because I was fairly responsible. I remember he and I would just watch TV. My parents used to take him on outings with us. I remember we'd drive down by the lake with him, and he freaked out when he saw the draw bridge come up, and he started hollering. He used to freak out when we got close to semis and he'd put his finger in his mouth and holler, he also made sure we all wore our seat belts and made sure we locked the doors. I remember we took him to see the fireworks one time and he would holler because he could feel the vibrations. He once told my dad he wanted to drive one of the motorized carts at the store, and my dad started laughing, and he said "There's no way, he'd run everyone down." and I started laughing because it was probably true. My uncle was this big goofy guy who made everyone around him smile. He wasn't himself the past few years, and I think we all knew something was going on, but with him being the way he is he wouldn't be able to handle tests or surgeries. He wouldn't understand and he'd feel he was under attack. He couldn't move around in order to recover from them, and they felt putting him through all of that would be torture for him. I'm really going to miss him, once all of this sinks in that is. It still doesn't feel completely real to me, I haven't seen my mom yet, I've kind of been avoiding her, because once I see her I know it's going to sink in hard. One look at her face, and it's going to hurt, because I'll see the pain on her face. My mom called my sister, and my sister called the rest of us. Right now I guess it just hasn't completely sunk in, intellectually I know it's real, but it hasn't completely hit home yet. My boyfriend has been so sweet to me, and he's trying to make me feel better, but right now I just don't know what I feel.