urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mayfly182 mayfly182 mayfly182 2009-10-12T12:34:08Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mayfly182:15655 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z 2009-10-12T12:34:08Z I have just received word that my aunt has finally died. <br /><br />Random thoughts / feelings - <br /><br />- Relief<br />- A fair helping of guilt (of course)<br />- Sadness<br />- Why the hell should I be feeling guilty or sad? She was my aunt, yes, but she lived in Holland and I can only remember meeting her twice in my whole life, the most recent time 12 years ago at her brother's/my dad's funeral when I wasn't exactly feeling sociable. I don't even remember what she looked like. Hell, we barely even had a language in common, English was I think her fourth language.<br />- Is her husband still my uncle? Someone who was married to my aunt and got divorced isn't my uncle any more, I'm pretty sure, in fact I think he might even have got married again. How does it work with death?<br />- Was it really necessary to keep giving a pretty elderly woman chemotherapy up until a couple of weeks before her death, when the cancer had already metastasized to various places including her brain? Sometimes I think modern medicine has a lot to answer for.<br />- More sadness. I knew my uncle a bit better than my aunt, he was much more talkative. I don't want to imagine what he's going through right now.<br />- Perhaps the bad memories of my dad dying (also of cancer) will leave me alone now.