Another Death, another Sorrow, another heartbreak.

So, it is 2am.
Yesterday evening, my Aunt JoAnn passed away.
This is a little over a year after I lost my Auntie Mel.

I think only my Uncle Joe is left from that generation of the family. The rest have all passed. So many of them, so many gone.

I know logically, that this was probably the best for Aunt JoAnn. That still doesn't make it any easier. I can only imagine the sorrow her kids, grand-kids, and great grand-kids are feeling. I say this because when my grandmother passed, there was a sharp moment of pain where I realized... I didn't know her anymore than she knew me. She'd suffered from Alzheimer's disease since before I was born. Any part of the woman I did know was debatable that it was really her. Ther was a period of about 10 years or so that I didn't even see her because my mother put her in a nursing home and thought it best if I didn't go visit. She tried to protect me from seeing the shell of a woman her mother had become.

My cousins knew their grandmother. As I told my cousin Trisha, Aunt JoAnn and Auntie Mel were like bonus Grandmothers for me, since mine was never there. I felt very close to them both, and though they weren't my grandmothers, I ache more from their loss than I ever did from losing my Grandma. They took her place. They stepped in for their sister. That was what family did.

I learned a lot about family, kindness, the type of person to be, from both my Aunts. They'd take me for a few weeks in the summer, and I'd get to spend time with each of them. I was probably a very difficult child...being an only child to start with, and having a lot of emotional issues to work with. But they handled me perfectly, I like to think, because along with my parents and my Dad's side of the family, I think I turned out okay.

My Aunts are the ones I remember talking to about things I wasn't sure I could talk to my parents about. Aunt JoAnn used to let me just play with the cats, Fluffy and Blue Eyes, or with Rocky the dog. They had rescued them, and it was part of what drives me now to want to help and rescue other animals. I know that I wouldn't be who I am without either of them.

Losing Aunt JoAnn is hard. As I said, it's probably the best. Like my own Grandmother, she developed Alzheimer's disease later in life. I cannot imagine what it must be like waking up and not know the people around you, where you are, or even who you are. It can't be easy on her family, going through it either. My Grandmother forgot who my mother was, and I believe more than once thought I was my mother. I know that when I was little she was living with us and tried to go "downtown". Only she wanted to go "downtown Trinidad, CO" and we were living in Oklahoma City. I have very little memories to draw upon, but I know it was hard on my mother, and on my Aunts and Uncles seeing their sister this way. I can imagine the same goes for my cousins.

Still, it does little to take the edge off the loss felt. Even if she didn't remember, she was still there. In some way... She was still her. She was alive. Now, she is gone. There is a finality to that which is irreversible.  That cutting of the thread which you cannot take back or undo. Any glimmer of hope has gone with her. She is at peace... but the agony of her family has not ended.

I don't know what to say to my cousins at this time. I'm bad with words and emotions when I'm so close to them. It always comes out awkward and wrong. The two sides of my brain don't talk to each other, and so it's really hard to either not sound like a self centered brat, or a robot. The emotional side, if you haven't guessed, is the self centered brat. It tries to assure others I understand because I've had similar feelings... so everything some how comes back to my life. The logical side is the robot, cutting out all the emotion and just saying that she's free from the disease, and they are free from the pain of the disease, and time will heal the broken hearts... and really sounding like an uncaring bastard.

Neither of which is the full or correct picture. I do care. I feel at odds with my feelings because she was "just my Aunt"... and they are grieving a mother, grandmother, or great grandmother. Who am I to intrude on their sorrow, even if I felt closer to her than my own grandmother? How can I offer them sympathy, when I feel anything I say makes it sound as if I either hurt just as much as them (which feels like it isn't allowed) or makes it seem like I'm a callous bitch (which I really am not).

My grief feels alien, and my position in the family once again feels alien. I can't logic my way out of this, and I certainly can't allow my feelings to guide me. I want to let them know I feel their pain, but I feel like maybe it's better to be the outsider again. There's too much going on in my own head, and heart, that maybe it is for the best if I just remain the black sheep.

Trying to tell my husband about it, through the bouts of wailing, and choking on my own tears, there is one phrase that stuck into my brain. So many are gone... I've lost so many of them... So many graves.

It feels like my whole past is being buried, that any of my happy childhood memories now traces a line to a gravestone. We have buried so many... buried the past. What hope do I have for the future? This, I know is the emotions delving too deep into the depression. The well of sorrow overflows and trips the circuits for the mental problems to begin again. Depression, my old enemy... I will never be free of you until I myself am in one of those graves. That is where our battle will end. But not today,... You can't own me over this. As deep as the sorrow runs at losing my Aunt, there is not enough grief to drive me to the cold earth as well. Because she would have wanted me to fight you. She would have wanted me to be strong. Tears may fall, and my heart might crack and break a thousand times, but my Aunts expected me to shoulder things like this. Family comes together when there are bad times. Family comes together when there is grief. Family stands together, and I can't do that if I'm letting you win.

If I have learned anything from these strong women in my family, it is that even when there is pain and sorrow, even when there is heartbreak, you pick yourself back up. Family picks you back up. And even just the thought of Family can pick you back up. They watched their brothers and husbands go off to war. They waited, worried, and still went about their life trying to smile and be happy, no matter the worry or sadness. They leaned on each other.

It is times like this I regret growing up an only child. No siblings to bond with, or lean on. My cousins have each other. They have a strong support system. They were raised by these women. My Aunt JoAnn raised my cousins everyday with the lessons and messages I only learned a few days out of the year... I have faith they will band together and pull though this. They don't need me mucking things up.

And I? I will soldier on as I can. I live my life trying to be the person all my family raised me to be. My parents, their parents, my aunts and uncles... everyone who had a hand in shaping how I grew up. Most of them are gone now. Passed on to the other side, of whatever awaits us after death. The best I can do, is be the person they helped me become, the person they wanted me to be.

Aunt JoAnn, I will miss you terribly. I know you are with Auntie Mel, Uncle Ivar, Uncle Pete, Uncle Albert, Uncle Robert, Aunt Ogla, my Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Phillip... and possibly my Grandpa Lyle and Grandma Helen, my friends Valerie and Dawn.... I hope that you are free, and that you are happy again. You were a brilliant light here on earth, and I hope that you will be just as brilliant a star in the night sky, for every one of your family to continue to look up to. Your's is a light that cannot die, or be dimmed.

Until we meet again, on whatever other side there is... bless you for being there when I needed you. Thank you for teaching me what you did. I love you, and will miss you.

Rest now.