Beautiful See you laters

 This weekend we said "See you later" to my Aunt Kathy. 

She was a pivotal person in my early life and as such she had asked me many years ago to write her a Yagoogly. I thought that maybe, she was just trying to compliment me on my early musings and writing because I wrote down my feelings and thoughts. It was practice for bigger exploits and she meant it. When I went to see her in the hospital she told me she was dying and that I still needed to do her Yagoogly. So on the weekend, I delivered it. It was hard. I went up to the podium with eyes brimming full of tears from memories flooding back as Rhonda-Lee spoke and I thought, how the hell am I going to do this. As I got up there I just started to talk. It wasn't so bad until the end of the speech. The actual goodbye was the hardest part. Telling her I love her and that I hope wherever she is, she knows she is loved. All seemed too much. There were laughs that I didn't expect because things like getting a tattoo with my aunt, running a marathon with my aunt or meditating, yoga, dance parties and of course, skinny dipping were all normal for us. She was a free spirit and I didn't realize that that kind of stuff was not normal in other families and ultimately "so her". experiences that we will never experience again because she genuinely was one-of-a-kind. That brought the tears flooding and when I looked up to look for Doug to ground myself, he was also red-faced with tears streaming down. It was all too much so I sat down and waited for the video to do the talking. It was the best I could with a memorial video. Fuck it was hard to make but ultimately I made it for her, with all of the love, stories, and good times in mind. It was my send-off to her and it was the best that I could do. 

Now it is navigating the world without Aunt Kathy and my mom.... the world feels weird without them... 

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