Saying Goodbye.

Sunday AM I was killing time before golf when I got a text from my Mom at 5 am letting me know my great Aunt had been transferred to the ICU. Fifteen minutes later I got a text letting me know that my Aunt Millie was no longer here on this earth .

Aunt Mil was 92 and had been living independently until this June, when she got ill and had to go into care. She was my grandmothers sister, my fathers aunt, a fixture in my life. She never learned to drive a car. She never, ever wanted for anything other than for the people around her to be happy. She was selfless, kind, eternally supportive. She was humble. She felt like my last link to my Grandmother.

Being away and losing loved ones is heartwrenching. I was just home in April, then away for three weeks in June...and I simply can't go home right now for the funeral as the kids go back to school Thursday.

Not being religious, its hard for me to gain comfort from the idea that my Aunt is peaceful and free now, soaring high above us in her new, perfect and painless body. I truly wish that I could simply believe and take comfort in that, but I can't. She's gone, and the next time I go home she will still be gone. This year has been hard for me in terms of loss or impending loss. Losing a close friend who is your age to cancer really throws your worldview into chaos. I'm getting to the age where my friends parents are starting to get sick and die, and man, that is hard. You go home, and they are gone. In some ways it was like they never were there. You start to wonder, what the fuck is this all about, anyway?