Why So Soon?

Today I want to talk about loss. I loss my aunt today and I must say I wasn't prepared for what took place. Yesterday I got a call from my cousin. She was crying and I couldn't understand a word that was coming out of her mouth. The only thing I understood was "Michelle" and "Harborview" and "where is your mom" when I finally caught up to my mom she had already gotten the news from my aunt's "partner". We all headed to the hospital where I stayed until midnight. Today at 4am she passed. It's so crazy because we were told that her heart was fine and they were just waiting to see if she would have any brain damage due to not knowing for sure how long she had gone without air during her earlier heart failure. She was 42; she would have turned 43 on the 21st of January.

This is such a hard time for me right now. I loss my great aunt 2 mos ago. I've had so much anger inside of me growing up. I was angry with my aunt because of how she treated me. She was my grandma's baby so when I came along 10 years later she wasn't too thrilled. She treated me like the little sister that took away from her being 100% the attention getter and 100% spoiled. Even though she was stilled spoiled as hell. I being the person I am never let that go. She would tell me to bring the kids over to see her sometime. I never did. I wasn't that I was so mad at her that I didn't want to be around her. I was never that mad. I just never made time because of that. It was like a sibling rivalry that never went away. What makes this so bad is the fact that she had MS. Then to my surprise we find out that wasn't the only medical issue she had. When the Drs told us her heart was ok I said to myself I would have more time to build a better relationship with my aunt. That chance was taken away at 4 am.

I just got off the phone with my cousin. It was her grandma that passed in October. She was telling me how she has been to a funeral every month for the last 3 mos. I know this to be true since I did the obituary program for those services. She was asking if it were a sign. A sign that we need to become closer or some kind of punishment maybe. Her aunt (my cousin and the person that called me about my aunt) isn't taking any of this very well. It as her mom that died in October and my aunt that died today was her 1st cousin and they were as close as sisters. She isn’t handling this very well at all. She told two of my cousins that if they would all stop having kids these people would be alive. That kind of hit me since I was pregnant when my grandma passed in 2005 with me due to give birth four weeks later (I had him 2 weeks later). My little cousin had just had her 2nd child about a few days before when her grandma passed away in October and my other cousin had her baby a month ago now my aunt has passed.

We all deal with death differently. I have cried. I will cry more. I will also be strong. I will work on building and strengthening relationships and work on surrounding myself with strong supportive people with similar life goals. I refuse to leave this earth with hatred and anger and not fulfilling my goals.

These are my promises to myself. Well, it is time for me to leave and attend the family meeting. I want to leave you with a thought. Is what you feel so bad where you cannot move past the hurt to build a stronger relationship with a loved one? Is it better to have them out of your life? Do you wish badly on them or would your hurt if something happened to them? Take the time to repair bad relationships. Become cordial, send holiday cards, do whatever it takes to mend the relationship. Honestly, it isn’t that hard.