Another death. This time a family member who was two years younger than me. My cousin, my friend.
I didn’t see her much passed the initial growing up days when we lived on the same street. I moved, to Beirut, Lebanon. She moved to Broadstairs. I went to boarding school. She sent her children to boarding school. Her mother was my Auntie Kay, my mother was her Auntie Kay. Her father was my mother’s brother. We shared the same grandparents.
She believed passionately in the saying, “blood is thicker than water.” She backed me up in everything. She adored her older brother. I wished I had an older brother to adore!
Then she got cancer. She got over it. But it had not got over her. It came back as a cruel, painful, secondary cancer that ate her bones. You would never know.
She was brave but she wouldn’t let you say that. She was living for God’s glory. She wanted to show everyone that if you trusted God, you would be all right. And she was all right. For many years. She was in pain, but God gave her the strength to exude all rightness to all who saw her and knew her.
Then she just overdid doing good for others; she overdid living her life for the Lord. She went into a slow, three week decline. I shared the bedside with her husband in his daily blogs. She hated waking up and still being “here” in the hospice where the nurses loved her.
She looked at her husband and her children and her eyes said, “I don’t want to be here any more.” But she would not just drift off that first week. She could have but she wasn’t ready. So much like Jane. In charge of God’s timing too! She lingered for two more weeks, lucid, in pain and beautiful. Surrounded by her family.
I knew she was ready. But I wasn’t ready. I knew she’d be home with Jesus, but she was going to leave me and countless others to manage without her.
I wasn’t worried about her departing, I was worried about my remaining. How was I going to be able to manage without her, forever? How was anyone?
I would go to her funeral if I was there, but I will not be there. I am going to England the following week, so I miss my final goodbye.
I will say my final goodbye the next time I visit Salisbury. I will walk through her beloved cathedral and the city pavements. I will kneel at her resting place and weep.
Goodbye dear cousin, best friend and amazing sister in Christ. Until we meet again.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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