Eight years ago, my wife and I got married.
About three weeks prior to that, my wife's mother passed away after a very quick bout with cancer. So quickly, in fact, that she was unable to send word to her mom's family in the Chicago area. She tried searching for them, but every lead that she got turned cold quickly.
A year passed. We flew to Chicago to hold a memorial service in her mother's memory at the very church that her mom and dad got married, and my wife got baptized in. And still, during that time, we searched for her family. We turned up nothing.
About 6 months ago, simply by chance, she managed to get in touch with one of her cousins on that side of the family. And that led to another. And another still. And finally with her mom's sister, my wife's Aunt Joann. Aunt Joann had already heard about her sister's passing, but she also did not know how to get hold of us. And so, both sides had thought there was no hope of finding each other. When we did reconnect, there was so much joy. Aunt Joann was so happy to find that my wife had gotten married and she immediately began calling me her nephew.
No sooner did we manage to find them, when a dark cloud grew over our happiness: Aunt Joann had been found to also have an advanced cancer.
With the help of a lot of friends we managed to scrape together some money to cover the inevitable funeral costs since Aunt Joann and her family currently live at the poverty level. She has since that time been in and out of the hospital, but has managed to hang on - barely, but she has hung on - long enough for my wife and I to see her one last time during our trip out to Chicago.
Her family welcomed us with open arms, and what little they had they shared with us gladly. They are simple, good people, and completely unprepared for this looming tragedy. On the one hand, it has been wonderful to finally find some of Caroline's family, and on the other, it's so hard to let go.
Two days after we said good-bye to the family, Aunt Joann was admitted to the emergency room. Her kidneys have shut-down to less than 50%, and she is having trouble eating or even drinking anything. At this moment, she doesn't have much longer.
I sit here writing, and thinking about the very little time I have spent knowing my wife's aunt. In that very short span of time, she opened her heart to me and welcomed me in as a part of her family. And I think to myself that life seems to be unfair at times. I know it's not, though. That's just me being narrow-minded. Life is fair, otherwise we would never have been able to find her before the fact, and been able to help out where we could.
It's frustrating though, to have to sit here in Orlando, and not be able to do more except keep in touch by phone. And even though there seems to be a million words to say, it only boils down to a precious few, and I share them with you as well as to my wife and her family:
I love you.
I'm here for you.
Be strong.
