Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: October 04, 2013 06:04PM
We recently got one of those dreaded phone calls: Drop everything. Come this instant.
My aunt was suddenly gravely ill.
I and my nuclear family live in Canada but all members of both maternal and paternal families have always lived in the UK. Despite this, we've managed to keep close ties, even though my sibs and I didn't know the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins too personally, the way we would have if we'd lived closer. It's always been remarkable to me that there are nevertheless strong ties amongst us. When we cousins meet, very infrequently, it's like seeing long-lost friends, and we're glad of it. When first the grandparents passed away, and I couldn't be there, and then uncles, then aunts started going, some way too young, and I wasn't there, and then even a cousin, younger than me, there was an extra measure of sadness because of the distance and the years lost. It sounds ridiculous after the fact to say "I was too busy at work" to enjoy the relationships before all else but that's how it's gone, for all of us, both ways (them over there and us over here). Yet again, same thing for me this time - my mom went to be with her sister and I am "keeping the faith" here at home. Thoughts, conversations, discussions, choices, memories, decisions. I'm lucky they involve me by phone as much as they do, as that is what I need to be able to cope with the situation and the distance.
My aunt is still hanging on, contrary to expectations, but the outlook is bleak. I have always felt a special bond with her and have often visualized the time when I would be back over the sea to visit. I love her musical voice and her sense of fun and the way she's like my mom but with her own flair too. She is my beautiful aunt, seen as a teen in an old photo, sporting her tartan and beating a drum, with her cloud of dark hair and those enormous brown eyes gazing out at me from all the years past. She knew me as the baby and toddler I was before we emigrated to Canada, and loved me since then the way you do a babe - just because they exist. She and my aunts and grandparents used their childhood pet name for me, which made me feel included and cared for in the extended family. On past visits my aunt and I have chatted for hours over tea while gazing out the French windows at the beautiful terraced garden that she had skilfully designed and lovingly tended.
A big part of the reason I haven't gone over now, or for many years, is due to my extreme fear of flying. So even with, or maybe especially because of the spectre of imminent death, I can't go. It actually gets worse for me each time, not better. I somewhat believe in the process of desensitization but it doesn't seem to work for me wrt flying. I don't mind the potential death part so much. It's the getting there that bothers me.
My aunt is Catholic, the strongest one in the family by far. One of her last projects was to put in a garden at the local church. Apparently, it was quite a big undertaking (no pun intended, hahahahahahaahahahahaaha - sorry, that's a nurse's "black humour" for you!) I'd like to see it some day. I'd rather see her again, but there ya go. That's life, as they say.
I was baptized Catholic - against my will, as I like to say (joking) - as my parents did it to me when I was a squalling infant. But, for whatever reasons, some of which I can't even explain (they're at the feeling level, not the thinking one) I have never been inclined to go Catholic. My search for a religious home has been restricted to Protestant and quasi-Protestant groups. I don't mind, though, the tradition of burning a candle (outside a church setting) as some kind of ritual or prayer in trying circumstances. When we can't do much else, we do that, as I and my sibs are doing now (some in church, most outside it).
This is the aunt who was married to the dashing Royal Navy officer. I posted about them a while back. He died young-ish and she has been hauntingly sad ever since. Although I didn't know him well and he wasn't my "blood uncle", he sent me postcards from all over the world while he travelled aboard Her Majesty's vessels. It was exciting as a young teen to receive postcards from a handsome Navy man whose ports of call were so exotic. I still have the cards and every now and then I take them out to look at again. This aunt and uncle never had any children so maybe at times they made do with me.
Even with so many relatives and friends passing away through the years, and with my lifelong interest in religion, and the years spent devoted to this or that denomination or group, I haven't thought much about that Mystery which comes the way of all flesh. I prefer the term "life after death" rather than "the afterlife", which sounds too Ancient Egyptian for me. "Eternal life" works too if you come at it from a religious perspective. I pretty much think that we'll find out soon enough so no use worrying over something we will never answer, this side of the Great Beyond.
I think part of the grieving (or pre-grieving if you will, as in this case my ill aunt is still alive, for the moment) is the losses we have already had rising up again (remembering others that have gone before) as well as the anticipatory loss we feel over deaths to come of other loved ones, especially those we sense will be brutal to deal with. In my case too there is regret over just being too far away to make it practical to have spent a lot of time with family overseas or to attend bedsides or funeral services as I would have chosen if possible.
Often when someone posts about a loved one who has died they or others will share a good thought or poem or song about grief or death or life beyond our blue marble. It seems that we all can identify with the emotions, feelings, experiences, lessons, compassion, wisdom, hope and sheer poetry in such words.
I came across a verse that resonates with me at this time. Which is the whole point of this post. It brings a tear but I feel beauty in the words and the rhythm:
'For what is it to die,
But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?
And when the Earth has claimed our limbs,
Then we shall truly dance.'
-Kahlil Gibran, 'The Prophet'
'Then we shall truly dance' - love that.
Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2013 12:48AM by Nightingale.