Sudden
Last Monday evening I noticed I'd missed a call on my phone; checked my voicemail and had a message from my Aunt Sara's sister-in-law telling me that Sara, one of my mom's two sisters, had died that morning, peacefully.
I listened to the message three times, waiting for the punchline, for the April Fool's!, for the Candid Camera guy to appear and let me in on the joke. Nothing. I called my cousin Kathy, daughter of my mom's other sister, who filled me in on details, surprised I hadn't heard: Two weeks before, after a thoroughly normal day, Aunt Sara's husband Gary had awakened in the middle of the night to hear Sara struggling for breath. Their son Jim, a trained EMT who's been living at home since his divorce a few months ago, performed CPR until the paramedics arrived. The paramedics were able to restart her heart, but she never regained consciousness, and Aunt Sara spent the next two weeks in a coma in ICU before the family decided to remove life support. She died later the same day.
This is still utterly unreal to me. Aunt Sara was five years older than my mom, and was her best friend, the person who knew her best in the world. Not only did I adore my aunt - she was gracious, warm, the sort of person who never said anything bad about anyone, who loved unconditionally and accepted everyone - but she was also the closest link I had to my mom since she died seventeen years ago.
I can't believe she's gone. I can't believe I didn't take better care of my relationship with her. I can't believe I let her last email sit in my inbox for a month, unanswered, because I hadn't made time to write.
These are her sons, my cousins Jim and Scott:
Scott, on the left, is 24 and favors his dad. Jim is nearly 28, four months older than me. He looks like a beefy, masculine, bald and bewhiskered version of our mothers. Both boys have the crystal blue eyes that our mothers had, that Noah has. I don't know how on earth they're going to deal with the sudden loss of their mom.
My grandmother had three daughters, and she has buried two. She is ninety-four years old, and she seems like she could live forever, but I know she won't. Although she's losing her vision, she's still strong and capable and sharp; but she's been hardened by the tragedies of losing two husbands and two daughters; she's all prickly stoicism and sharp angles. I wish she were a Christian, that she felt some hope in all this. My mother and my aunt loved Jesus, and they both believed in more than this life - I cling to that hope.
Mom and Aunt Sara were best friends, the sort of best friends who could talk for hours without pausing for breath. I bet heaven is louder now that they're both there together; I wonder if God can get a word in edgewise. At the funeral Wednesday, my dad mentioned a verse toward the end of Revelation: "...and there was silence in heaven for about half an hour." I have trouble imagining that, now.
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