Family: Loss and Love

From where I sit in my aunt's living room, I can almost see the room where my mother died. It's blocked by the bathroom door. One of the surprises of my visit here has been that I am not weirded out by walking through that room. I don't choose to spend time there, or to sit in the places where I often sat when Mom was dying, but I am okay being in the house. I came here because my uncle just died. My aunt lost her baby sister and her husband of forty years within four months of each other. My grief for my mother is deep, and I grieve for my uncle, but I also grieve for my aunt, and the unique and unfair position in which she finds herself.

My cousin and I have always been close, but now we are part of a special club. We have a bond that will never be broken: by losing our parents, we have become even closer. My cousin and my aunt are now my most immediate family. The three of us are a unit - it is now us against the world. We will have new traditions and inside jokes. My aunt will be the grandma to all of our children. Her house will become the family compound for holidays and special occasions. When I lost my mother, I felt the loss of my immediate family, but now I know that that was never true - i just lost the person at the core of it. It's a shattering loss, but not one that leaves me alone.

We have all cried a little on this visit - mostly tearing up. I decided a long time ago that crying is too emotionally and physically taxing to do all the time. My uncle died a week ago yesterday, and my mother died four months ago tomorrow. We have sat in the sun and reminisced. We have looked at family pictures. We have done lots of hugging. We have laughed until we wanted to pee. We have felt my mother and uncle's presences behind our conversations and shared experiences.

Someday I will wrestle small children onto the train along with my bags, and my husband and I will head up north to join the rest of my (now diminished) family here at my aunt's house. My aunt will pick us up at the station, and my cousin and his wife and their children will come out to meet us. We will remember my mom and my uncle, telling as many stories as the children's attention will hold, so that they can feel them as part of our family.