I wasn’t going to post anything this week, having just buried my Aunt Nancy, whose life was taken too quickly and too early by a rare and aggressive form of gallbladder cancer. She complained of stomach pain at the bridge table on August 5th and died last Saturday. My mom’s little sister, Nancy was 68, and she’d never even been sick before this. No surgeries. No hospitalizations. No major health issues.
Frankly, my family is just too devastated and too exhausted to do much of anything this week, and I wasn’t sure I could write anything even half-way decent until at least Monday. But then my brother, Scott, e-mailed me from the men’s room of a McDonald’s in Westchester County, New York, this photo and the accompanying caption:
It’s exactly the sort of thing that I needed, the sort of thing that would have made Aunt Nancy laugh. It’s a Looney Toons BandAid on a too-big boo-boo that you know will have to be changed within the hour, and yet, you use it anyway, because you just plain need to. We need to.
When it was time to leave the post-funeral gathering on Wednesday, my Uncle Peter, Aunt Nancy’s husband, looked up at me and chuckled with a twinge of pain.
“I was just going to go find Nancy and tell her it’s time to go,” he confessed. I hugged him and replied, “It’s going to be like that for a long time.”
Until then, we will keep on applying BandAids.
Awww I am so sorry. Death is never easy. Cancer sucks
I am so sorry for your loss. The death of someone still so young and full of life is just hard, hard, hard. And laughter is definitely the best band-aid around. I lost my father this past spring (and my blog has been as much about his care and decline, and the subsequent grieving process, as about my children) and even though he was very old, and took a very long time to complete his dying it was still tough.
At his memorial service, after the moving stuff, we started telling funny stories about him and repeating his favorite jokes (he had been a funny, funny man) and this was such an important part of coping with our sense of loss and a way to feel still connected to him.
Even though the roles had been reversed for some time, and I had been much more the parent to him than he to me for some years (he was 92), there are still moments when I want to tell “Daddy” about something and have to stop myself and remember he is gone.
I know you are aware that this process of acclimating to your Aunt’s passing will take some time and that this first year, your year of firsts – first holidays, birthdays, etc without her,, when yon acutely feel her loss – will be the hardest. I am so glad you have some Looney Toon band-aids to help take a little edge off the pain.
I’m sorry for your loss. My father passed away one month ago too. Your Uncle Peter’s comment about finding your aunt and saying it was time to go, was very touching. Its sad, may you all heal with time.
Cancer sucks. I’m so sorry for your loss.
I am sorry for your loss. It is hard to lose a well-loved family member. I loved this post. Thank you for sharing.
So sorry for your loss. I think sometimes when we are standing on the precipice of grief or pain, humor, laughter, or the ridiculous can help pull us back just a bit…not away from the grief, pain, sadness, but nudge us off the very edge and keep us from falling off the cliff. I’m glad you at least have some Loony Toon Band Aids for some temporary, momentary healing.
I am so sorry for your loss!! ((HUG))
That was a very funny picture. Humor can save you at the hardest of times. I am very sorry for your loss.