Of Premature Passings
Last week my 36 year old cousin was farewelled. She’d fought valiantly for a decade to beat breast cancer.She could have wallowed in self-pity, but she didn’t. Until the end she was thinking of everybody else, what they needed.She has peace now.My aged parents went down for the funeral. They found it emotionally tough, as you would expect, and also physically draining due to the large number of people - old friends, family and acquaintances - that all wanted to catch up with them on this rare return to the town they spent 30 years of their lives in.It was disturbing to have my mother break down over the phone on her return to Auckland. She was tired and overwrought and just very glad to be home.It occurred to me that there would have been so many challenges for them to deal with.My parents and their siblings have been close for over 70 years. They stay in regular contact and visit each other often. New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Te Awamutu, Auckland. There are no distances too great to stay apart.My generation on the other hand, are not particularly close. An older brother that communicates quarterly via an email newsletter. An older sister that doesn’t communicate - except by handwritten letter, scanned by her husband and emailed to my parents. I get everything second hand. A younger sister who lives in Albany and whom I have minimal contact with due to both of us having very busy lives. I also have many cousins that I don’t connect with that often.Maybe it is that I’ve just given up trying to stay in touch. Perhaps I need to make an effort again. Food for thought, I guess.It must have been very hard on my Aunty, farewelling a daughter to cancer, when she herself had it, and beat it.It must have been hard on my Aunty’s siblings seeing her pain and seeing her busy herself with hosting, and deferring the grieving for another time.I have heard it said that a parent should never outlive their child. I can understand this idea.We simply don’t know how much time we have on this earth. It is so important to live each day well, and not wasting our lives.- S