Dear Darlings,

I’ve been silent the past months. The journey has been challenging. The months have been hard. We’ve endured our fair share of hard knocks, but we’ve been buoyed by some joyous moments.

In these stories, there is heartache, heartbreak, and some seriously hard knocks. Life isn’t fair. Life is cruel. Life is complicated. But when you join life with love you can endure what life hands you.

Sometimes.

There are other times when you just need to crawl into a hole and hunker down to endure the seeming never-ending loop of sadness.

And that’s what I did. I hunkered down. I avoided. I did what I needed to weather the storms that battered many aspects of my life.

Part of this story I don’t feel I have a right to share because I wasn’t there from the beginning. I came in late. I was invited in – so in a way perhaps that gives me license to share.

In December of 2022, my beautiful cousin, Renee, was diagnosed with gastric cancer. I read all about it on Facebook. I didn’t deal intimately with her illness. I didn’t think there was a need for me to get involved. All signs pointed to her surviving. She was young, months shy of 41 when she got the news. The odds were that she would beat it. I watched and waited for Facebook updates. I chimed in with well-wishes and good intentions. But I didn’t feel the need to be there. Renee had so many in her corner. All of her best friends rallied around her. There are so many, too many to name, and if I tried, I forget some, hurt some, and offend some. They know who they are. They’re the ones who did fundraisers with local bands, sold duck socks, made lucky keychains, set up a go-fund-me account, drove her to appointments, and sat with her until all hours of the night comforting her in the hospice house. They took care of her. My aunt was there and I thought she was part of helping with Renee’s care, but I didn’t have the whole picture.

Until I did.

In September of 2023, my 82-year-old aunt, Louise, was hospitalized because of congestive heart failure. I called Renee to check-in. I asked if she wanted me to come. It was just the two of them. My uncle passed away suddenly in 2008. My other cousin was killed in a tragic accident in 1991 when she was 18. Renee and Louise. They were all they had left. Renee was scared and in tears. These occurrences rarely become public with the women on my mom’s side of the family. She said, “No, I’m fine.” I told her to call if she changed her mind. Two minutes later, my phone rang. “Actually, I do want you to come.” I booked my flight then and there and flew out the next day.

What I found when I got there shocked me to the core. Aunt Louise. The woman who taught me so much in life. So many of my favorite childhood memories come from being around her, with her. Renee. The cousin I held as new baby and swooned over, the little beauty and the much anticipated child. They were both in a state I wasn’t expecting. I guess I wanted to believe what I held true in my head. That they were okay and didn’t need help from us. That truth I held in my head was farther away than I ever imagined. They were both sick. Renee’s cancer was visible. Her slim frame was made slimmer from the chemo treatments, the nausea, the vomitting, her lack of appetite, and the cancer spreading despite treatments. With aunt Louise, it wasn’t just her heart. Her sharp mind, and sharper wit were slipping.

The doctors bandied the word dementia around when it came to aunt Louise. It was there, in her chart, for all to read. Renee didn’t want to believe it. She said it was just the stress of her diagnosis making her mom forgetful and anxious. As my travels to a from their house became more frequent, I saw what Renee didn’t want to believe. Aunt Louise has dementia.

Renee never married nor had children, which can be construed as either a good or a bad thing in this situation. She had her friends to help her, but no husband or children there. No husband to hold her hand and help hold her hair back when she was violently ill from her treatments. No children to buoy her spirits with giggles and snuggles. But there was also no husband there to mourn her after she left. No children of her own trying to hold on to the memory of her laugh, her light, and her smile when cancer finally ravaged her body and took her from this world. March 27th was that day.

In the midst of my trips to and from New York to help, my father-in-law left us. December 18th was that day. Four days before Claire’s birthday, one week before Christmas, and eight days before Jo’s birthday. I went into a deep hole, wondering if I’d ever find a way to climb out. Guilt flooded my entire being. I didn’t go see him in between my trips north. I was so looking forward to Claire’s birthday, Christmas eve, Christmas day, and Jo’s birthday with him. I was assured in the knowledge that I’d see him all of those days. But those precious moments with him weren’t to be. And I felt like a failure. I didn’t go see him. Everyone reassured me. “He knew how busy you were.” “He knew you loved him.” “He understood how important it was for you to be in New York.” But he left, and I didn’t see him before.

I stayed in the hole a long time. Sometimes I think I’m still there. Sometimes I feel crushed by the weight of these past months.

We said goodbye to Renee one month to the day after she left us. It was a beautiful memorial. It was a true testament to her spirit, showing how big of an impact she had on all who were blessed enough to know her.

We said goodbye to my father-in-law, Stan Sr., six months after he left us. We gathered with all of the brothers, their wives and families and said a fond farewell to the man who devoted his life to being the best role model for his family. We buried both of my in-laws that weekend. Stan and Mary Jean are side by side for all eternity. I can imagine Mary Jean standing patiently at the gates of heaven to welcome Stan back to her side. Her hand reached out to once again have his placed firmly in her grasp.

And somewhere in all of this, we spirited aunt Louise out of her house in New York. We brought her south to live near us in Virginia. She talks about how she doesn’t want to remember what brought her here. But her dementia and anxiety have slowed. Her sharp wit is still there. I hear it occasionally and it makes all of us smile. And while the circumstances that brought her here aren’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy, I’m forever grateful to have her close to us.

The transitions and farewells were, and continue to be, some of the hardest of my life.

There is sunshine in all of this, to be sure. In November of 2023 we welcomed our first grand baby into our world. Yes, I’m a grandmother now, and he’s a joy to behold! He is pure, unadulterated love. Stan Sr. got to meet him before he left ~ his first great grandchild. My father-in-law was a big, big man. The pictures of him holding his tiny great grandson are beyond priceless. And now, I get to see my aunt interact with him, and it’s precious. She watches him and smiles when he smiles. The joy in her eyes when she sees him makes my heart ache for her a little less. Sunshine.

Then there is the love. It’s there. So much of it. Ripe for the picking. It’s my ladder out of the hole I let myself sink into.

Love and sunshine. That’s what combats death and dying. Leaning into the love and basking in the sunshine.

xo,

me