It Just Keeps Coming

[ladysprite]

RIP Barbara Collier.

My great-aunt has died. I'm not sure whether it happened last night or this morning; I didn't think to ask. I got the phone call from my mother this morning, as part of the family phone tree - we're getting pretty good at this.

It wasn't unexpected. Like I mentioned earlier this week, she had a stroke a while ago and has been functionally gone for the past year and a half; at the family reunion last weekend the decision was made to stop her life support. Honestly, deep down in my heart of hearts, I'm glad for her that she's passed. The way she was... that wasn't any way to live, especially not for a woman as vibrant and energetic and no-nonsense as she was - one of my favorite memories of her was at her 90th birthday party, where I didn't get much of a chance to talk with her because she was too busy dancing and flirting with her new boyfriend.

I'm running out of things to say, in posts like this. I remember her. I love her. She never had children of her own, so in each generation she'd pick one of the nieces and make them her special kid. First it was my mother, then me. Each summer I'd spend a month at her house in Maine, and she'd take me to the beach and to her farm and let me read her yellowed old books and give me the time and attention that parents can't always give a kid. Her first husband was a dairy farmer; he died when I was about ten-ish. She remarried a few years later, and it took me a while to forgive her for that - it meant that she sold the farm and moved away from the house that I had always secretly thought of as my real home, and that I had to share her with some old guy who had liver spots and a funny voice, but I eventually came to love Uncle Francis, too, mostly because she did.

I want to be like her. There are so many other things I could say here, but that's the only one, I think, that matters.

And I feel like a horrible person because I think I'm not going to her funeral. It falls on a day that I'm not working, but.... I have been too much surrounded by death this year. I love her, and I love my family, but I don't know if driving to Kennebunk to spend a day surrounded by distant aunts and cousins, wallowing in our shared grief, is going to do anything other than make me even more miserable. I know I should, I know that it's important to fly the family color, but what I want, and what I need, is to be around people who love me *AND* know me, to be outside, to walk and breathe and spend time in my own head, not being the Good Daughter and the Good Niece and holding up everyone else's sorrow.

I love you, Auntie Barbara, and I miss you, and thank you.

And please, God, let this be the last one for a little while?

Please?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

*hug*

I'm sorry you've lost her, but it sounds like you lost her a while ago, and it's only now that the poor tired body has finally been allowed to make an exit.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

That was a beautiful eulogy.

"I know I should, I know that it's important to fly the family color"

You 'know' these things? I expect that certain people have *told* you these things, but that doesn't mean that they are true.

[rms-butterfly.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry for your loss. *hugs*

[auntiemame67.livejournal.com]

*hug*
you grieve in your own way, not in the way you are told to.
*hug*

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Ah, darlin'... I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do, please let me know. You have my phone number, right?

Funerals are for sharing burdens - and if it would simply pile more on to you, then don't go. If you can, consider calling or e-mailing anyone who you love, and who might expect to see you there, so they know you won't be there.

I hope you know I'll always be your friend, and would stand down all the demons of hell by your side.

[virtualvirtue.livejournal.com]

*hug offered*

[hermitgeecko.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope this is the last heartbreak coming, and that life is kinder to you starting very very soon.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Should anyone ask (and really, it's no one else's business!), just tell them that you've had too much death to deal with in the last few months, and it's a choice between "showing the flag" and your mental health. That's all any civilized person needs to hear.

[whiffert.livejournal.com]

I too heard of the decision to withdraw life support a few days ago. I had to agree that it was the best thing for Auntie Barbara. I did see her briefly last year, and it broke my heart to see her as she was, and remember her as she had been. She was one of a pair of remarkable sisters whose like we would be more than fortunate to see again.

[aries-walker.livejournal.com]

As it happens, no joke, while I was reading this further bit of bad news, this performance of this song just happened to come on. So, in my own long-distance Internetty way, this is as close as I can get to singing this to you in the most direct and heartfelt way I can.



Also, everyone grieves in their own way. Grieve the way you need, not the way the family or anyone else expects you to. Barbara won't mind. She knows.

Also also, hugs.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Very sorry for your loss. :-(

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"I know that it's important to fly the family color,"

...but you should fly it in a way that doesn't hurt you. Maybe that means you make sure the flowers got there, and then you go out dancing and flirt with your husband.

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

::hugs::

I totally understand you not wanting to go to the funeral...

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Lots more *hugs*