Bereavement

My aunt Evelyn died last night at midnight. She was 82 and had been rushed into hospital a couple of days earlier. I have been expecting to hear of her death ever since.

I had not seen her for quite a few years. There was a family kerfuffle between her and my mother and I ended up becoming estranged from Evelyn as a result. Ironically my mother and Evelyn had made up since but the reconciliation didn't include me even though I hadn't even been part of the original dispute. So she's frozen in my mind as I last saw her, healthy apart from a limp and deafness in one ear, and the realisation that she was eighty-two was a shock to me in itself.

I loved my aunt. I spent a lot of time with her when I was a child. My love of cats originated with her cats (my mother didn't want pets, although she has them now). It was Evelyn who introduced me to the works of Paul Gallico ('Jennie', and 'Thomasina', and 'The Man Who Was Magic'). Also to James Thurber ("The 13 Clocks" and "The Wonderful O"), and later to the Don Camillo books, and a lot more. Now she's gone and I'll never see her again and I don't know how she felt about us having lost touch. And I left it much too late to do anything about it.

I've rather retreated into myself the past couple of days. I'm carrying on writing as a refuge, and I've been reading LJ entries and fics, but I pretty much haven't felt up to leaving comments or to answering comments left on my own LJ.

I'm not thinking clearly about this at all. I just want her to not be dead.

Bereavement

My aunt Evelyn died last night at midnight. She was 82 and had been rushed into hospital a couple of days earlier. I have been expecting to hear of her death ever since.

I had not seen her for quite a few years. There was a family kerfuffle between her and my mother and I ended up becoming estranged from Evelyn as a result. Ironically my mother and Evelyn had made up since but the reconciliation didn't include me even though I hadn't even been part of the original dispute. So she's frozen in my mind as I last saw her, healthy apart from a limp and deafness in one ear, and the realisation that she was eighty-two was a shock to me in itself.

I loved my aunt. I spent a lot of time with her when I was a child. My love of cats originated with her cats (my mother didn't want pets, although she has them now). It was Evelyn who introduced me to the works of Paul Gallico ('Jennie', and 'Thomasina', and 'The Man Who Was Magic'). Also to James Thurber ("The 13 Clocks" and "The Wonderful O"), and later to the Don Camillo books, and a lot more. Now she's gone and I'll never see her again and I don't know how she felt about us having lost touch. And I left it much too late to do anything about it.

I've rather retreated into myself the past couple of days. I'm carrying on writing as a refuge, and I've been reading LJ entries and fics, but I pretty much haven't felt up to leaving comments or to answering comments left on my own LJ.

I'm not thinking clearly about this at all. I just want her to not be dead.