Loss touches us all. My aunt recently passed after an intense and painful year with cancer. She was my Mum's only sister, a couple of years younger. I knew that it would be hard for Mum, but part of me also thought that she would know how to cope. She lost a brother and her own mother, my Oma, to cancer as well.
When we talked about this, Mum pointed out how different it felt, losing her sister. They had a sisterly shorthand, their own names for each other, and a mutual love of The Bold & The Beautiful. It made me think what a gift siblings can be - even if we don't see each other often, or have different values and priorities. To have someone else who can say 'I was there. That is what happened.' And to be able to unpack the past, if not to make sense of it, then perhaps help take the sting out of it, inject a little humour.
My mum Nellie & her sister Angie - one of the rare photos where they both have their eyes open at the same time :)
A couple of weeks before my aunt passed, there was a dinner at my Mum's place with their other siblings and cousins. Humour is the default for my family. They dipped straight back into the past, recalling neighbours from 60 years ago, nuns that picked on them at school, teasing the youngest sibling (59) for being so precious and spoilt. They were dropping in words in Dutch, laughing over photos of bowl cuts and school uniforms, poking fun at each other's expanding waistlines and bowed legs and bald patches. I wish I had videoed it.
For some, it was the last time they saw my aunt. She was in good form, her usual spicy self, being waited on hand and foot because 'I may as well milk it while I can'. I was lucky enough to see her once more, and will always be grateful for those brief moments of hand-holding and quiet words.
When we are losing someone we love, we find parts of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. Depths of compassion and empathy. Terror at confronting our own mortality. Heartbreak at seeing them in pain. Facing an unknown version of life without them in it.
The space left when a loved one dies can feel simultaneously huge yet small; life continues, regardless. It seems incongruous and all kinds of wrong that the world doesn't stop turning, yet it is this momentum that will, eventually, return you to the slipstream of life.
We are forever altered by the people who share space in our hearts, be it family, partners or dear friends. When I think about how painful loss - of any sort - is, it reminds me of the quote to love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise by Dostoevsky. Love demands a willingness to be vulnerable, find courage and endure hardship alongside moments of joy and contentment.
This is the yin and the yang of life. The shadow side. May love be the torch that shines a light into the darkness, helping you to find your way through the hard times.
With love,
Amanda ❤️ xx