RIP Uncle Joe

I guess Grandma came to get you. You were her first son and always her favourite. At least, that's what I've heard. I never met her, you see, she died just before I was born. But I suppose she would have come back for you.

As we get older and the people who used to love us unconditionally expire one by one, we're left in a colder, crueller world. Because there are few who know. There are few who remember. There are still fewer who care.

I heard your last minutes were not traumatic. True, you threw up, but then you fell into a deep deep sleep and then, you slipped away. It was relatively painless, no wailing. No drama.

There is no one to weep. (Perhaps that's for the best, hey?)

Mum was over there. She came to say goodbye. You were her eldest brother and even when she stopped talking to you, she still cared.

When she called to say you had gone, her voice was subdued. In shock. Thank goodness Julie is there with her. She wanted us to come too. Well, Dadda is going tomorrow. He is also in shock. He kept saying, but he's younger than me, and I knew him.

And the rest of them? Your sisters? I don't know. I don't know how they reacted, whether it was relief, whether it was sadness.

That house grows older, dustier, drearier and emptier. Will you stick around and haunt it for a while or will you go join Papa, Mamma and Auntie Gert? Were they the ones who came to get you?

Was it pleasant? Where they at the window, calling? Ah, but they wouldn't have been because you died unconscious, you died without anyone praying over you, you died with three sisters staring in horror as the paramedic tried to revive you, and not much else.

You died without the grace of a happy death.