They say there's a time for everything.... a time to live, a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to to mourn and a time to dance.
Time is marching on, and the world still seems a surreal place. Stupid things hit me, a turquoise coloured piece of jewellery in a shop, a funny thought, and, most often, nothing at all other than the stark, horrible fact that my amazing Aunt is dead.
There are times I sit down and I want to write, but nothing comes to mind, the words remain inside. Nothing comes to text, nothing except old memories, and instead of writing those, I sit and I remember the good times, the silly times, the sad times, and everything in between. In one way, the last few months of my Aunt's life seem to belong to another woman, to another Anne, and yet, they are so irrevocably her.
Her bravery, her humour, her love, everything she embodied was permanently on display over those four months. Her love in trying to shield us from the horrors of what she feared was truly happening, her humour in her varying ways of dealing with the repeated blows of the shit, shit news she was being dealt over the times, and her everything-my Uncle Sean-by her side, caring for her day and night. They were-and will always be-in my mind, the most solid, secure unit of love I can ever envisage.
Time is passing and it's still as devastating. I can't get her last few minutes out of my head, her eyes roaming around the room and her breathing, so quiet compared to how laboured it had been. The prayers that were emanating from my Uncle standing in one corner, to Leonard Cohen's singing in the other. Strangely, I still can't remember what was on when she passed, I just remember the first chorus of "Hallelujah" starting at some point later. The birds singing outside, the freshness of the air and the sunset that night, the strange calm amongst us before the grief truly hit, and the wish that we could have stayed in those moments before she passed forever, because up until then, she was still technically with us. To borrow some words from my Grandmother, written about the passing of her son, my Aunt's brother Gerry,
"Then I, who was part of him,
cried for yesterday that we might live it all over again.
But sorrow is today and yesterday is but a dream, and now I understand, though
each sorrow is it's own sorrow, it is also part of all the sorrows one has ever
known.
Our yesterdays lie heavily on our todays and our todays lie heavily upon our tomorrows. And we remember the sad times when we should cherish the glad times, and sometimes we can forget those we have laughed with, but we never can forget those we cried with."
What good can these words do? They can't bring her back, they can't ever truly hope to capture the sound of her laugh, the magic way she would say "hell-low" to you on the phone, they can't do much except bring back the memories. Sometimes, bringing back the memories is just what's needed.
