Death's in The Family.

Here now.  Sitting.  Sit.  Sat.  Back then.  Was.  When.

Watching television with my cousins.

Phone rings.
Automatically answer.
Second nature.
My instant robotic inquiry of a friendly:

"Hello?"

I am greeted by sobbing.  Sudden, incoherent words, spluttering out of the receiver.  My ears strain to make sense of what is now taking place.

Here now.  Listening.  Listened.  Listen.  Back then.  Was.  When.

"Anna?"  I ask, now alarmed; concerned, fearful, stricken.
"--Will"  I make out from the sobs.  I listen as she attempts feebly to control her voice between the chocking tears.
"Yes?! What is it?"  I ask.  Reality threatens to bring a blow.  Tragedy drips from the static. 
"Aunti Susie--is dead!"

"WHAT!?"

  Without meaning, I sit up.  Eyes focused, looking past the solid reality in front of me.  Confused, fearful, shocked, rejecting.  The word is reflexive.  I dare not believe the words I hear.  There must be a mistake.  I did not hear it correctly.  I am at fault.  The message is wrong.  The message cannot fit with this reality.  The message cannot fit with my reality.  And so my senses snap and spit back the message in an instance, as automatic as a flinch; a wince.

The question:  "What?" 

My aunt had died.  In a biking accident.  She was struck by a vehicle.  

That lovely woman died.   The image of her smile, broke down like shattered glass.  The associated feeling of hope and joy after a terrible day, fluttered silently away.  My aunt, whose laugh was the loudest at family social gatherings, whose humor never faltered to trigger contagious smiles, who was simply there.  She was there.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Funerals, Birthdays--she was there.  All the time.

But no, that can't be, you see.  

She's always at the family gatherings.  Get-togethers.  She plays a large part.  She's always there with something bright to say.  She's always there to hug in greetings and leavings.  She's always there.  Always.

How can I hold my view of the world, if those concepts that made up that view--cease to exist?

  How can I understand what night and day are, if their very means of existing are suddenly pulled out from under me?

How can she just....be gone.  

My father sat down with my Grandma.  Slowly, meaningfully, to tell her the awful news.  Seconds before, I had watched my Grandma, hugging everyone--aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, son-in-laws--the family-- that had driven to our house.  All our family was there.  Hugging Grandma.  She didn't know yet... She was so happy.  She didn't ask why they were there.  She didn't care why they were there.  She was just happy to see them visit.    My father sat her down...  Everyone went quiet.  Dreading.  I leaned back against a wall with folded arms.  Feeling guilty for what I was about to witness.  I knew I should have looked away, or looked down at the ground.  Or leave the room.  Anything.  But I couldn't take my eyes off of my Grandma, who was about to receive the news that her beloved daughter had died.

With calm control, my father said clearly and objectively to her:

"This morning..."

I studied to see my Grandma's smile slowly fade to an expression of curiosity.... leaving room for a small thought-- that perhaps this wasn't such a happy visit afterall...

"...Susie Died."

A fist gripped my insides as I watched her old wrinkled face shrivel to a cry.  Her words of disbelief.  My father's confirmation.  She cupped her small hands to her face as I froze to listen to her dry sobs.  Her dry tears.

She was too old to experience this.  She was too old to feel such hurt.

It must be the worst thing in the world.  To have to bury your children. 

Fate is sick.

I walked inside, chest hurting from such an overwhelming flood of emotions.  Of what cruel reality it is to be a human being, and to feel such empathy, compassion, and understanding in so many perspectives and degrees at once.

I realized then that it wasn't just my aunt who had died.

My grandmother lost her daughter.
My father lost his sister.
Her friends lost their friend.

And our family lost a light.

I sat at the kitchen table in painful recognition of this.  At the peak of understanding, finally the gates had given in to the pressure--and I had begun to break down for the first time since hearing the news.  I did not feel hollow inside.  I did not feel anything gripping my insides.  I only felt pain.

Pain.  Unquenchable, unforgiving, immeasurable pain.  A pain that quickly destroyed reason.  A pain that quickly destroyed thought.  A body's odd retaliation to pump out salt water from tear ducts.  A pain that shook the body.  A pain that shook everything I was.  I was pain itself.  And in that instance of a depthless agony I had fallen into, I slowly crept closer to what it meant to be here;

Now.  Sitting.  Sit.  As I sat.  Back then.  What was.  When. 

I felt alive.  Human.  At peace.  At edge.  At a loving, hateful vantage point where I could see everything for what it was.  With no bias.  With no hesitation.  I felt the loss of life; and felt the value of what it was to be alive. 

How unpredictably, life can just pull things out from under you.  How it can take away all that you know, and leave you wondering if you ever knew anything in the first place.  Leaving you scared, lost, confused.

But it is by this act that life does us the most justice.  It is through the pain and heartache that we feel whole.  It is by getting sucked into the hole that we may ever truly begin to look up.  To just look up and see that everything is brighter than we had thought.   It was the darkness that clenched me that allowed for the stars to shine bright.

Life may bring darkness in this life,
But it is darkness that brings out the stars;
and all the hope their light brings. 

Rest in peace my wonderful Aunt Susie.

I will never forget the light you brought me. Both in life, and death.