Farewell to a Beggar

We lost one of our own today.  I am starting to get really, really incredibly pissed off at this death thing.  It sucks any way you look at it.  If you know the person is nearing the end (whether it's because of age or cancer or whatever) it sucks.  If you don't know, because the person is young and reasonably healthy and there's no reason to suspect anything is amiss, it sucks.  I was in the latter camp today, blindsided by it.

So I cried for her, and for my family, and for the unfairness of it, and for the selfishness of not getting to say goodbye.  Or rather, not knowing that our last goodbye was our last goodbye.

And I was reminded once again that life is fleeting and we have one chance at this...one chance to do and experience as much as we can and to not take a single day for granted.

Anyone who knows me knows that I look for the silver lining in everything.  It's always there.  Sometimes it's hard to find, but it's there.  My silver lining today is to take the gift that she gave us, the lesson that the best way to live, the only way to really live, is to live on our terms, no one else's.  She was tough and independent, had gorgeous Cherokee cheekbones, and could throw horseshoes better than most men.  If I had to use only one word to describe her, it's fierce.  I loved and respected her for that.  I want to be as fierce as she was some day.

RIP Aunt Mary Ann.  You are loved and you will be missed.