Yesterday Rick and I attended the funeral of a close family friend – someone very precious and very dear to my parents and their circle of friends.
Apart from the fact that I’d grown up with her as one of my ‘aunties,’ Susana was particularly special to me because she was the one who’d sat next to me after Cameron died and had said the words, “The pain will lessen in time.”
If anyone else had said such a thing, I would probably have responded in anger. But Aunty Susana – well, she’d lost one of her own sons just four years prior. Which meant she knew. And understood. And so her words meant the world to me. And those words have stayed with me to this day.
Tears were shed yesterday. Many tears.
In many ways I still can’t believe she is gone. Her death was so sudden, so uncompletely unexpected. My heart goes out to her husband and her other son – both of whom have now lost half their family. I cannot imagine their pain, and do not pretend to.
Before we left the Memorial Gardens, we visited Cameron very briefly. We saw immediately that the building of the centre behind Cameron’s spot had progressed substantially since our last visit.
“It might actually be quite nice,” Rick observed.
We also noticed that there was now no rose bush at all next to Cameron’s plaque, and so Rick made a trip to the office to inform them.
They reassured him that they would fix it – in time for Cameron’s anniversary in September.