A Lament

My Aunt Paula passed away this morning and I feel robbed, not just because she died of cancer of the lungs and brain but because I feel I was denied, through other people's choices, the chance of knowing my Aunt better, and of knowing her youngest son, my cousin Blaine better before he died as well. My Grandpa R was married before to a woman he knew with in months that he should not have married but he stuck it out, that was the way he was raised. They had three children, a daughter and then a few years later, boy/girl twins who were born in different counties, one in the car on the way to the hospital and the other born at the hospital. Their mother ran around behind my Grandpa's back and had affairs, the children sneaked their mother's cigarettes and lied to cover up for her. When Grandpa found out, they got divorced but the children stayed with their mother and became wilder. They were young teenagers when my Grandpa married my Grandmother and after a while there came a son and then when Grandma prayed that God would give her another little boy so her little Johnie would have a playmate, it seemed God rewarded her faith by blessing her with both a little boy and a little girl which she had always wanted. That little girl was my mother.
As his second family grew, my Grandpa watched as his first became wilder, each child making bad choices and rebelling in ways he could not stop, and by then they were adults, having children of their own, some even without his knowledge. This is why I have half-cousins that are actually older than my mother. Grandpa was angry and afraid, until his first children mended their ways he wanted them to have little to do with his second chance at raising a family. And so it was that my mother hardly knew her oldest brother before he was shot to death in California. His twin has made much better choices, she married a good man after making some mistakes with bad ones, but she has a host of children who have all found God and are working hard to raise their families in the light. Their families all live south quite a ways so I see them every year or so when some of them come back to visit.
My Aunt Paula, she lived life as she saw fit, with no regrets about who she made angry along the way. She never grew up and realized that life was about more than what made her happy. In the last few years, especially after reuniting with her son Blaine who discovered he had a brain tumor about ten years ago, Paula began to accept our invitation to come out to our family reunions and so I got to see her perhaps at least once or twice a year for the last five years. The worst year was 2007 because we saw her so often because Blaine, who had come out of several surgeries before and lived and had seemed like he was in remission, relapsed and died in November of 07. This bright and shining light, this strong and courageous cousin I didn't get to know for most of my life, went out of it just as quickly as he came in. Now, his mother joins him in eternity, and I must wait for my own sojourn into heaven to get to know them better.
Rest in the Peace of Heaven which you could not find here on Earth, Paula and Blaine.
My Aunt Paula,