72 hours of my life

I'm messing everything up just by writing this. Three hours of sleep followed by the routinely surreal airport experience. The best coach seat I've ever had on an airplane. A bloody mary (an "eye-closer"as my dad used to say) and into hours of head-bobbing dozing and an hour of reading about how people try to disappear and how they (usually) get caught. And it was only now that I had any idea of what time it was.

Back in the day, I never would have even considered taking a flight this long in a smaller type of commercial airplane. It would have to be a widebody- one of those planes with 2 aisles. Nowadays, though, it's almost impossible to find anything else. I'm going to Sacramento where my aunt, who survived 10 years or so with repeated episodes of liver cancer, finally said enough and came home to be comfortable for the last days of her life. I don't have a big or especially close family, for a variety of reasons. My parents each had one sibling. I have 3 first cousins on my father's side of the family and have not seen any of them for what must be 30 years. I don't think they were at my wedding. I'm recently in touch with one of their kids on Facebook. My mother's sister and her family were the only ones I ever really cared about.

This ends up being a very important set of relationships for me. My aunt is my only relative of that generation with whom I've really felt simpatico. She always loved and not just accepted but seemed to understand and even cherish me and my peculiar manner of behaving. Over the years I found myself in all kinds of trouble, or maybe just making mischief, when I was visiting the family at their home outside Sacramento or on their annual camping trips to the mountains and/or the beach. Once I went rafting on the American River with my cousin's boyfriend and for reasons that now escape me later admitted that we had been doing something out there on the river that we probably ought not to have done. This led to many hours of frank and interesting conversation, of which all I remember was how devoid it was of any sort of judgmental vibe. I could make a mistake and still be accepted and loved.

I visited often during high school, college and immediately post-college, so you can imagine the kinds of stuff that went on. It was a gloriously freeing set of experiences. I've had periods of close and sometimes complex relationships with my cousins and their circle over the years. I haven't seen her family as much since I got older and more settled, aside from a bunch of visits when I was living in California. Even that was over 20 years ago. But the close ties have remained and taken as a whole it is unforgettable.

I'm only giving you a trickle of the flood of emotions and memories that have almost overwhelmed me since I heard that my aunt was coming home to die. I arrive in Sacramento and call to check in and find that my aunt passed away while I was in the air. This both stems that flood and starts another one. It seemed like a peculiar time to arrive, but in ways it could not have been more perfectly timed. I had spoken with my aunt on the telephone on one of the last days she was capable of doing that. I had a chance to tell her I loved her and that she was in my thoughts and my heart. I could have done little more had I arrived earlier.

Now, on the last day of my visit, I'm still in this fog of present emotions and memories and family where I can't quite put a name on it. It doesn't always feel good, but it somehow feels right. I will always treasure my memories of my aunt, and I feel blessed to be able to have this sense of closure.