In my life, there's always unexpected happenings.  The past twelve months has been a cycle of death that's "close to home" for me.  Yet in all this, life continues, new directions appear providing the possibility of new life, a form of rebirth.   Of course, it's very probable that "babies" could be on the horizon in the family.  My brother has not produced any yet, and my sons definitely could.  Anthony proclaimed "when" he has kids it will be at least four.  I think he figures if there's any tragedies, there will still be kids left to carry on.   This conclusion came from the very sad passing of Jamie and the devastation her family faced now that both of their only children have passed.  As for Richard, he's not thinking about babies until he's in his 30s (I chuckled to myself when he made that statement, having heard the exact same words uttered from his dad and 10 months later he was married and another year later Richard was born:  Charles was only 24).

When I woke up Monday morning and checked my messages online - I was surprised to read that my Aunt Lynn had passed away.  Even more surprising was that my dad hadn't been contacted.  Something I found out firsthand when I called to talk to him that morning and HE DIDN'T KNOW his own sister had died.   It is ironic that I, living over in the USA found out before he did and he lives in New Zealand.  Now the family members who will communicate have dad's contact information.

Thank goodness for the wonders of Instant Messaging (Yahoo rocks!) and my niece and cousin's common sense to contact me the best way they knew how: IM.

The rest of the week I was thinking of "home" (back in New Zealand), fondly recalling childhood memories of my Aunt and her children.   I was glad to hear dad was able to fly up to Auckland to attend the funeral.  Still it was difficult to comprehend why one brother can't pick up the phone to call another brother that their sister had passed?  Well that's the way the family communicates.  Much the same that it took two days for me to be informed that my own mum passed away last year.  For some reason, my sister who did nothing for mum's funeral, couldn't pick up the phone and call me.  Instead I had to find out via email from my brother.  The guilt of not returning for mum's funeral (due to time constraints and my passport/resident reentry not uptodate) was eased by being able to organize a fabulous wreath, an orbituary for the newspaper and my best friend reading an eulogy.  Our video messages sent for the funeral allowed for us to all feel like we were there and for the rest of family and friends who attended to see us too.

My mood and energy level has fluctuated significantly this week - at first I was just drained when I found out that dad didn't know about Aunty Lynn and I hated that I was so far away.  At one point I entertained the idea of flying back, but honestly it's just not doable in the short time you have to organize and fly 10,000 miles across the ocean.

Then I had a surge when I heard that many members of the family were going and dad would be catching up with relatives he hadn't seen since our nana passed in the mid 80s!  Yes, our family lets things run way too deep and needs to practice FORGIVENESS bigtime!!!!!!  I'm cheered to know that Aunty Lynn's passing has actually brought some closeness of a family that has ripped itself apart and been locked in timewarp for way too long.