Rocky Summer
It's been a rocky start to summer, to say the least.
Darwin's sister Linda died around the time of final exams. It was semi-expected--she'd been ill for some time--but no less upsetting. She died on a Friday, and her funeral was the following Monday. The pastor freely admitted that he hadn't known Linda, and he said it wasn't appropriate for him to eulogize someone he'd never met, so he asked people from the congregation to speak. Several people called on Darwin to speak. He didn't want to, but eventually he did, and it was heartfelt.
A couple weeks later was the internment of her ashes, and we drove up for that, too. Only Darwin's nephew (Linda's son) and one of Darwin's sisters came for that. It was raining, fittingly. We went to a restaurant afterward.
Last week my uncle Maris passed away. At 88, he was the oldest sibling and last remaining brother in my dad's generation. Maris was deeply affected by the war years dad's family spent in Europe during and after Word War II, and all his life he struggled with deep-seated PTSD, and it made his life very difficult. I remember liking Maris (Morris in English, though no one in the family called him that) when I was younger. As I got older, these two parts of the family drifted, and I didn't see him very much. He passed away quietly in hospice, the only family member left who remembered living in Latvia.
And my brother died two and a half months ago.
Rocky start to summer.
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Darwin's sister Linda died around the time of final exams. It was semi-expected--she'd been ill for some time--but no less upsetting. She died on a Friday, and her funeral was the following Monday. The pastor freely admitted that he hadn't known Linda, and he said it wasn't appropriate for him to eulogize someone he'd never met, so he asked people from the congregation to speak. Several people called on Darwin to speak. He didn't want to, but eventually he did, and it was heartfelt.
A couple weeks later was the internment of her ashes, and we drove up for that, too. Only Darwin's nephew (Linda's son) and one of Darwin's sisters came for that. It was raining, fittingly. We went to a restaurant afterward.
Last week my uncle Maris passed away. At 88, he was the oldest sibling and last remaining brother in my dad's generation. Maris was deeply affected by the war years dad's family spent in Europe during and after Word War II, and all his life he struggled with deep-seated PTSD, and it made his life very difficult. I remember liking Maris (Morris in English, though no one in the family called him that) when I was younger. As I got older, these two parts of the family drifted, and I didn't see him very much. He passed away quietly in hospice, the only family member left who remembered living in Latvia.
And my brother died two and a half months ago.
Rocky start to summer.
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