Saturday was a day of receiving sad news. My uncle, my mother's brother, passed away. He was 81 and had been in poor health for awhile. My own bout with gestational diabetes certainly made me more aware of sugar and my eating habits, but hearing about Uncle B's 3 times a week dialysis scared the shit out of me. Diabetes is a scary, scary disease.
His death makes my mother the last of her siblings to remain living, which has to be a sad "honor" to have. She was one of 6 to survive childhood (an infant sibling died at around a month old). Her oldest brother G died in the 1970s of a heart attack, I believe. The brother J who was 3 years older than my mom died of esophageal cancer. I'm not sure what the cause of her other brother J's death. Her sister had dementia and had been in a nursing home for years. And now Uncle B is gone.
Mom told me when she spoke to her nephew (who is only 18 months younger than her) about B's passing, he said, "Well you know what this means?" and mom replied, "Yes, that we're the next to go." Apparently his thinking was that now my mom and he are the oldest living relatives in the family, but I got my positive thinking from someone....and it was obviously my mother.
While I am sad for B's wife and sons and grandchildren, I am also sad for my mother, and even for me. Because time marches on and age catches up with us all. Because loss is an integral part of life. Because it is a reminder to me that somehow I am 3 someones' mother and almost 40, and my mother will be 74 this year. Because one day I will lose my parents or my children or my spouse.
And that is a terrible benefit of being left standing.
His death makes my mother the last of her siblings to remain living, which has to be a sad "honor" to have. She was one of 6 to survive childhood (an infant sibling died at around a month old). Her oldest brother G died in the 1970s of a heart attack, I believe. The brother J who was 3 years older than my mom died of esophageal cancer. I'm not sure what the cause of her other brother J's death. Her sister had dementia and had been in a nursing home for years. And now Uncle B is gone.
Mom told me when she spoke to her nephew (who is only 18 months younger than her) about B's passing, he said, "Well you know what this means?" and mom replied, "Yes, that we're the next to go." Apparently his thinking was that now my mom and he are the oldest living relatives in the family, but I got my positive thinking from someone....and it was obviously my mother.
While I am sad for B's wife and sons and grandchildren, I am also sad for my mother, and even for me. Because time marches on and age catches up with us all. Because loss is an integral part of life. Because it is a reminder to me that somehow I am 3 someones' mother and almost 40, and my mother will be 74 this year. Because one day I will lose my parents or my children or my spouse.
And that is a terrible benefit of being left standing.
1 comment:
I'm sorry to hear about your uncle. I've thought about what it would be like to lose a sibling. I read somewhere recently that sibling loss is particularly painful because he or she is part of the world you've always known...
I just deleted a sentence I had written here about a dark thought that had been occurring to me lately about death, because I figured you really don't need any added to your own.... You're welcome.
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