Regret

It was about 6 weeks ago I suppose but in lockdown its hard to tell. My wife had come in from her deliveries and I was occupied doing something when I was aware of her saying something. All I heard was: auntie, uncle and died. What? So she repeated again: Your aunt M died in 2012 and your Uncle R died in 2013. Shock. Not the best delivery it has to be said. It toom me back to when my mum came home unannounced one day from work and announced by uncle was dead- totally out the blue as he was on 40 and lived over the road from me. This had the same shock. It hit me harder than I ever thought it would. Talking to my brother later he said the same thing.

When my gran died in 2004 it was the end of an era. I was not comfortable with it. I missed my gran of course who I loved dearly and had been an ever present in my life for all of memory. She had been the last left in that house. My granda died there in 1984 and then my uncle in 1995. As I said above he was only 40. It was like losing one every decade so maybe I should have expected another 10 years later. But with my gran's passing the base that was her home too was gone and it would be the break up of family. My gran painstakingly left a will that she thought would stop any problems between her 3 remaining boys once she was gone. Sadly on the day of her cremation I waved off the oldest and his wife knowing I'd likely never see them again and presuming they were oblivious to it. Too many things had passed between the brothers over years and they parted ways.

And so it came to be that I never will see them again. I just always thought they would be there until I got that news
In truth I have lived in such an anxiety bubble I have cared little for anything outside it. It turns out they lived just 7 miles away. In the early days we exchanged Christmas cards but that stopped over the years. If I'd not had these anxiety problems it would have been different. I had a lot of time for both of them and would have gone through to see them. Just not to be and that is a regret I will have to live with.

The photo above is the 2 of them with my gran. Possibly early 70s. Better days.