How Wesley Duncan McRae Lived Every Day Like It Mattered

Today is National Carpe Diem Day. Seize the day. It’s a phrase that gets printed on posters and quoted in speeches, but at its core it simply means this: don’t waste the day you’ve been given.

March 7th would have marked the 78th birthday of Wesley Duncan McRae. It is also the 18th birthday of my daughter. Sixty years apart, sharing the same square on the calendar. One life that finished its race, and another just stepping into adulthood. There is something quietly poetic about that — one generation completing its chapter while another begins writing theirs.

Most people knew him as Wesley Duncan McRae. In our family, he was Uncle Duncan. When we were around a card table or talking late into the night, he was Uncle Dunc. He was never formal to us. He was present.

When I think about him, I don’t think first about milestones or dates. I see him. Tie-dye shirt or a Bob Seger tee. Shorts. Flip-flops. No jacket, even when everyone else was bundled up in North Carolina wondering how he wasn’t freezing. It was almost a running joke that he simply did not get cold. He was steady in that way — comfortable, unbothered, exactly himself.

Some people live a long time. Uncle Duncan lived his days.

And if there is anyone I’ve known who quietly understood what “carpe diem” looks like in real life, it was him — not in a loud, ambitious way, but in the simple decision to enter whatever day was in front of him and participate fully.

The Uniform of a Man Who Didn’t Get Cold

If you knew Uncle Duncan for any length of time, you could picture him without even trying. He had a uniform, and he wore it faithfully. Tie-dye shirts in every color combination imaginable. Bob Seger tees that looked like they had lived a few decades alongside him. Athletic shorts. Flip-flops more often than not. Sneakers only if the occasion absolutely demanded it. Jackets were rare. Sweatshirts even rarer.

It didn’t seem to matter whether we were in Florida or up in North Carolina for Thanksgiving. While everyone else was layered up, hands tucked into pockets, talking about how cold it was, Uncle Duncan would be standing there in shorts and a T-shirt like it was mid-summer. It became a running joke that he simply didn’t get cold. I don’t know if that was biologically true, but it was spiritually accurate. He carried a kind of steady warmth with him that made the temperature feel irrelevant.

On the rare occasion he did dress up, it almost startled you. A button-down shirt. Maybe something tucked in. It felt unusual, like seeing a favorite character in a movie suddenly wearing something out of costume. You’d notice it immediately because it just wasn’t him. The tie-dye and band shirts weren’t an act. They were an extension of who he was. He didn’t need to present a polished version of himself to be accepted. He was comfortable in his own skin, comfortable in his own story, comfortable letting people see him exactly as he was.

There’s something quietly powerful about that. In a world where so many people are constantly adjusting their appearance or their personality to fit the room, Uncle Duncan looked the same in almost every memory I have of him. Not because he lacked depth, but because he had settled into himself. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He wasn’t trying to be younger than he was or more serious than he felt. He just showed up as Uncle Duncan — tie-dye, flip-flops, and all — and that consistency made you smile every time you saw him walking toward you.

The Calm in the Room

What stands out to me even more than the tie-dye or the flip-flops is the atmosphere Uncle Duncan carried with him. He was not easily rattled. He didn’t flare up over small inconveniences, and he didn’t let minor frustrations hijack the room. You could tell when something annoyed him, of course—he was human—but even then, there was a gentleness underneath it. He cared about people too much to let irritation become the loudest thing about him.

He had a way of putting others first that didn’t feel performative. If something would inconvenience someone else, he would quietly adjust. If plans shifted, he rolled with it. If someone needed time, attention, or a listening ear, he gave it without keeping score. He wasn’t trying to be impressive. He was simply attentive.

Being around him made me calm.

That’s not a dramatic statement. It’s just true. In a world that can feel hurried, reactive, and tense, Uncle Duncan brought steadiness. You felt it when you sat down next to him. You felt it when he leaned back in a chair and started shuffling cards.

We played everything—Spades, Hearts, poker, dominoes. He could sit for hours at a table, completely content, completely engaged. One of my favorite memories is the infamous Spades game where he reneged. For anyone who plays, you know that’s a big deal. He laid down a card from the wrong suit when he actually had the correct one in his hand. Later it came out, and I reminded him of the rule: you lose points for that. He didn’t love it, but he leaned into it with exaggerated frustration, making a show of it for laughs. He knew the rule. He knew he got caught. But instead of getting defensive, he turned it into a running joke that lasted for years.

That was his way. Even when he was “worked up,” it was playful. He created space for people to relax. Space to laugh. Space to just be. And the longer I reflect on it, the more I realize how rare that is. Not everyone commands a room with volume. Some people change a room simply by lowering the temperature. Uncle Duncan was one of those people.

The Curious Man

What many people might not have seen at first glance was how curious Uncle Duncan was. Beneath the relaxed exterior and easy laughter was a man who asked real questions. When we stayed up late during our trips to North Carolina, long after most everyone else had gone to bed, our conversations would drift into deeper waters. We would talk about salvation—not in abstract theological language, but in personal terms. What does it mean to be saved? What does it actually feel like? How do you know? He wasn’t arguing. He wasn’t debating. He was exploring. There was sincerity in the way he asked, and humility in the way he listened.

Those same late-night talks would often shift from faith to stories of his time in the Navy. He had been stationed in Hawaii and served as a crew chief on helicopters, flying supply runs into Vietnam. He didn’t talk about it with bravado. There was no dramatic tone, no attempt to impress. It was simply part of his life story—something he had done, a responsibility he had carried. He served quietly then, just as he lived quietly later. Listening to him describe the rhythm of those flights, the responsibility of moving equipment and supplies into dangerous places, you could sense the steadiness that had always defined him.

Over the years, especially after his first wife passed, I watched something deepen in him spiritually. He had always had a foundation, but in the later chapter of his life, it felt like he was settling things in his heart. He started attending church more consistently. Our conversations about faith grew less theoretical and more anchored. There was a peace forming, not loud or dramatic, but settled.

He didn’t announce a transformation. He simply grew. And in that growth, you could see a man who was drawing closer to God, one conversation, one Sunday morning, one quiet reflection at a time. Heaven was not a distant concept for him toward the end. It was something he had thought about, wrestled with, and, I believe, come to rest in.

He Never Aged Out of Life

If there is one thing that defined Uncle Duncan, it was this: he never aged out of participating. Some people slowly transition from doing to watching. They become spectators of their own families, content to sit on the sidelines while everyone else makes the memories. That was never him.

When we would travel to North Carolina and visit the snow tubing place, he didn’t stand at the bottom holding coats. He grabbed an inner tube and went down the hill with the kids. It didn’t matter how old he was. It didn’t matter that the rest of us might have hesitated. If it looked like fun, he was in.

The same thing happened not long ago when we were playing poker. He had picked up the game later in life and, like everything else he enjoyed, he didn’t dabble. He dove in. He studied it, talked about it, played it every chance he got. On one cold night, after I won a game and my father-in-law jokingly said the winner had to jump in the pool, I made a deal with Uncle Duncan. I told him I’d split the winnings if he did it. Without much hesitation, he agreed. He went and got into his boxers and jumped into a freezing pool in the middle of winter. Not because he needed the money, but because he wanted to participate in the moment.

That energy never left him. You could see it in the way he played games for hours without getting restless. You could see it in the way he stayed active, the way his years as a P.E. teacher seemed to echo through his retirement. He didn’t talk about being young. He simply acted like someone who hadn’t decided he was done yet.

Carpe Diem, for Uncle Duncan, did not mean chasing ambition or building something grand. It meant participation. It meant saying yes to the hill, yes to the card table, yes to the freezing pool, yes to whatever the day held. He didn’t spectate life. He entered it.

Love, Loyalty, and Second Chances

There was a depth to Uncle Duncan that you only understood if you watched the long arc of his life. His first marriage was not flashy or dramatic. It was marked by loyalty. By duty. By staying. When his wife became sick with cancer, he did not retreat from the weight of it. He carried it. He cared for her. He honored the commitment he had made. Whatever complexities existed inside that marriage, one thing was clear: he did not walk away when things became hard. He stayed until the end.

During those years, it seemed like much of his energy was devoted to that responsibility. There was a quiet separation from the rest of us at times, not because he didn’t care, but because his focus was fixed on the woman he had promised to love. And then, after she passed, something shifted. He began reconnecting more deeply with the family. He was around more. Engaged more. Laughing more. It was as if a chapter had closed, and another had opened.

Then came Theresa, whom he lovingly called “Sweet T.” What happened between them didn’t feel forced or convenient. It felt like a spark. There was a visible joy in him when he talked about her, a lightness that you couldn’t miss. Watching them together was different from watching his first marriage. This was softer, warmer, openly affectionate in a way that was inspiring to see. It was love that had been earned through years of life and loss.

It reminded me that growth doesn’t stop at a certain age. Renewal isn’t reserved for the young. Uncle Duncan didn’t settle into the idea that his best emotional years were behind him. Even in his seventies, he was still capable of new beginnings, new affection, new joy. There was something quietly hopeful about that.

His life tells a simple but powerful truth: it’s never too late for renewal.

Heaven and the Finish Line

Uncle Duncan lived seventy-seven full years. Not perfect years. Not easy years. But full ones. He did not rush through them, and he did not waste them. When I think about the phrase carpe diem, it fits him—not because he chased achievement, but because he showed up to whatever day was handed to him and entered it completely.

And yet, as fitting as that phrase is, the real seizing of the day goes deeper than snow tubing, card games, or even loyal love. The deepest way to seize a day is to live it with eternity in mind. Over the last years of his life, I watched Uncle Duncan settle that part of his heart. Our late-night conversations about salvation weren’t hypothetical. They were personal. They were sincere. I saw him draw closer to God, attend church more faithfully, listen to worship music, and wrestle honestly with what it meant to belong to Christ.

I am confident he came to terms with that question. I am confident he knew what it meant to be saved. And because of that, I am confident he is home.

There is something meaningful about the fact that his birthday and my daughter’s birthday fall on the same day, sixty years apart. One life that finished its race and one life stepping into adulthood. Life keeps moving forward whether we are ready or not. Generations turn. Years stack up. But heaven anchors it all. Heaven reminds us that the finish line is not an ending; it is a crossing.

The best way to honor Uncle Duncan is not simply to remember the tie-dye shirts, the flip-flops, the card games, or even the pool jumps. It is to live the day in front of us the way he did—fully, kindly, curiously, and with eternity settled in our hearts.

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