Didn't See That One Coming

Today I was intent on spacing out and watching lots of BBC since I would have the house to myself for awhile.

But two intense phone calls later, and I'm on a course of internet research and logistic coordination for my peeps on the other side of the country.

My aunt, ex wife of my uncle, has always stayed close to the family. It was my parents' house she came to when she was sick with cancer. It was my mom she called to keep in touch. She died unexpectedly. Probably badly.

I always think of her as  the strawberry blonde I first met. I thought she was so beautiful and glamorous. She knew how to do hair and makeup and she always looked good.

She also had a kinda goofy, warped sense of humour that would catch you off guard. Her life was tough, really tough. And she was brave and bold in situations where other people just give up.

I don't know what to say. I'm not sure what I feel. This is just some fucked up shit right here.

She appeared, in my own weird way, in a poem i wrote a long time ago.

July 12, 2005

what is there left, at the end of a day
but to look to the right, and deign to say
"there but for the grace of something i don't know
swiftly, surely, i must go."

perhaps not grace, but twenty years hence
you find yourself, not twenty but p'haps
merely twelve and a pence
would shuttle you to this dire mishap

all doomed failure, all reckoned to ruin
sealed with a kiss, affection's misdoing
till finally the damn breaks and no dike will save
a faithless pauper from a spiritless grave

for karma's a wheel, and we're all underfoot
but reflection might leave one to believe
that the terrible entropy was somehow mistook
for some sad fate's soft reprieve