Goodbye

It was never my intention to post anything sad here - and yet here I am, in my second entry, about to get all emotional on you. Apologies in advance.

A remarkable woman lost her battle with cancer today. The official battle was a short one - just over a month in length. She'd been in ill health for a while before being diagnosed, so I suspect her time in the trenches was significantly longer. She was stoic, brave, stubborn and refused to 'bother' anyone with her problems - lest we worry about her. That's the kind of woman she was. Everyone else's needs were far more important than her own, if you were to believe her. And no one could convince her otherwise.
When I say my Aunt was like a second mother to me, it's no exaggeration. She never married. She lived two streets away from our house and would visit six days a week when we were growing up. I have very few childhood memories that don't feature her prominently.

As small children - myself and my brother, unable to annunciate 'Margaret', referred to her as 'Gaga'. Long before poker faces and  meat dresses. As we grew older 'Gaga' changed to 'Peg'. She was never Margaret, never Aunty Peg. She was just Peg.

Our relationship was a special one. I've been living in London for 14 years. For the first 12 of those years, Peg sent me two letters a week, each a hand written account of all the goings on at home. 20-30 newspaper clippings would accompany each letter. Sports stories, politics, individual letters to the editor - anything that she thought I might be interested in. Despite her arthritic hands, Peg would hand-cut each of the articles from the paper and send them off. All for me.

When I think of how many letters in total there must have been, how many hours of her time it had taken over the years, how much pain she endured to cut out those clippings, I feel genuinely humbled. She only stopped sending them when I absolutely insisted on it. She never let me feel unloved. 

I hope that there are people in my life that feel as unconditionally loved by me as she made me feel. She gave so much and yet expected so little.

I visit Australia every year and bidding farewell to Peg as I returned to London was always emotional. She cried (as did I) each and every year without fail. And when I'd say "See you later in the year", she would always answer "God willing". This year, that goodbye was poignant. For this year, I was farewelling an older and frailer woman. The thought that this might be our final goodbye weighed on my mind as I drove away from her house.

Words could never do justice to her, so I'm going to stop pretending they can.

Rest in Peace and sleep well, my lovely Peg.