My Dear Uncle Bert

As a child, I told my uncle my greatest fear. And you know what he told me?

“Kid, you gotta face your fears. Otherwise, they’ll run your life.”

Well, now I have to face it, and it’s all thanks to Bert.

Let’s go back to a few months ago, when I first heard about the death of my Uncle Bert. He was a kind and sweet man, very loyal to those important to him, and always ready to listen. After hearing about his death, I felt that life was meaningless, since he had been such an important person in my own life. Then I heard about the will, and I realized that even beyond the grave, he was still guiding me.

My Uncle Bert was a very rich man, and I mean a very rich man. It was never clear how he earned all of this money, but it didn’t matter much to me. Probably because I just saw him as my uncle who I loved dearly, and nothing else besides that mattered to me. But anyways, in his will, he handed over all of this money to me… on one condition:

I had to travel to the highest point in every country, and take a picture of all that lay below me. No big deal, right?

Except for the fact that I am terrified of heights.

It’s hard for me to stand in tall office buildings and look out the windows. I feel my pulse quicken, my knees quake, and my head grows foggy, it actually gets bad enough that I need to hold onto something sold to comfort myself. Just thinking about this trip makes me dizzy.

I would consider not doing it, except that he threatened to give the money to his horrible friend Fred. Fred is what I would call a sleazy kind of guy, and that’s just me being nice. Uncle Bert knew how much I don’t like Fred, and it’s probably the reason why he made that threat in the first place.

Since I can’t let Fred have this money, now I’m deciding on how to prepare for my first destination: Denali, in Alaska. I know it’s not going to be easy by any means, but I have to do this. Not only because I dislike Fred, but because my uncle believed that this mission was important enough to include in his will. I told him how I always wanted to travel and see the world, but I was too scared, I didn’t have the money; some way or another I always had some sort of excuse ready.

Now I have to face both of my fears head on, and I gotta say, it’s the most alive I’ve felt, not just in these past few months, but in my entire life.