Hi, guys.
I got a letter this afternoon from an aunt I haven’t talked to in years, telling me her cousin—whom I’ve been close to for a very long time, but hadn’t traded email with since last summer—died suddenly last week, after a whirlwind bout of lung cancer that I hadn’t even heard about.
This woman has been an aunt to me my whole life. She was the one who kept me up-to-date on far-flung family. She was the one I talked genealogy with and commiserated with over the fading away of her mother’s and my grandmother’s generation (they were sisters). She held the thread between the generations for me and talked about how it felt to see her elders go. Over the years, she shared with me in detail her memories of her grandparents, my grandparents, my great-aunts and -uncles and cousins and second cousins. She was even the one who acted as fact-checker for the mystery stories I used to write that were set in the 1950s.
And when someone we both loved died—an uncle, a great-uncle, a cousin—she was the one who let me know.
Get up out of your chairs, you guys. Go find the ones you love and hug them. They’re all you have, and no matter how long it is your time with them is going to be so short.
Even though it’s so very precious.
I’m so sorry for your loss. This is a good reminder to appreciate those closest to us – they really are the priority in my life. My prayers are with you.
Thanks, Michelle. It was quite a shock. She was only 68—although her grandmother (my great-grandmother) lived to be 96.
As she and I talked about more than once, it’s terribly hard to see your elders go.
Hi Victoria,
I’m sorry about your aunt. It’s a wonderful gift to have had such a close friendship with a member of your family. Of course, it only makes you miss them twice as much.
Thank you, Kathryn.
I had a long visit with her husband this morning. He’s quite a tough old bird. He told me the best story about her final words to her grandsons, who are my son’s age:
She was once a very heavy smoker, although she quite some 25 years ago, so they knew where the lung cancer came from when it appeared. Apparently she told the boys, “Your Grandma’s not a particularly religious person, but I think I’ll be floating around out there. And if I ever see you so much as light a match to put to a cigarette, I will ZOT you with lightning in the BUTT. You see right here what comes of that. I’ll ZAP you.”
My husband laughed when he heard this story and said, “I can just see Barbara standing in line for her electro-zotter. “How long do the batteries last in these things? Because I’ve got a whole lot of zotting to do.”
I guess a friend at her funeral said, “If we see thunder and lightning, we’ll know Barbara’s up there wrestling the keys to the Pearly Gates away from St. Peter.”
She was certainly a force to be reckoned with.