I'll try to keep this brief, as I'm in the middle of twenty things as I try to get ready to leave for Beth's wedding this weekend. I can't believe this weekend is here, by the way--I'm excited and not quite ready and I know it's going to be a great celebration.
My aunt (my mother's sister) passed away last weekend--she was young and it was unexpected, which always makes these things more difficult. I don't see my mom's family as much as I used to when I was small, and I didn't really know how it was going to be--it's tough when you only see people at funerals. But it was odd and nice to see all my cousins together again, and it made me much sadder than I expected. I was reminded of a different time, when I was younger and there were shared birthdays and hide and go seek games and picnics with pizza casseroles. It's hard to think about my aunt being gone--even though we didn't see each other much, it's still a huge change for the family.
It brought up a lot of questions for Evan too. The usual ones like "What's heaven like?" and "How does it feel when you die?". We also got some other random ones about how the burial works and who is in charge of digging that hole and why did she decide to die from 7-9 pm (the calling hours at the funeral home). And then at bedtime, he cried for a while, fearing that I would die or Mike would die and wanting to know when exactly it will happen. And these are the questions that tear me up too--I can't lie and say I'm never going to die, and I can't make him feel better about it, and I try to stop myself from imagining ever being apart from my children.
So that was this week. It was tiring and emotional and filled with questions that have no answers. But it's okay, this is part of life, and this is part of growing up.
