Bye Bye Angie

As one thing after the other unbalanced and threw my life into turmoil I wished I could just ignore everything and retreat from the world.  I think it is possibly better that I could not quite do this as there was too much to get done.

We were in the midst of chaos after a very disorderly move when we got the news that my Mother in Law had passed away.  For a day we ignored the pile of furniture and boxes as we were to numb from shock to do anything.  We did not have time to continue grieving as we had to make arrangements to get to Durban to the Memorial Service.

We drove to Nelspruit to fetch Raewyn and left early the next morning for Durban.   What should have been a 5 to 6 hour trip took 13 hours and we missed the Memorial Service.

I hate being on the road because I have this terrible fear of car accidents but a strange thing happened.  Despite the reason for the trip and despite all the road works and the road block I actually enjoyed the trip.

Carmen and Raewyn are both young adults now embarking on their own lives.  If this had not happened we would not have had this trip together.  I think it was for Michael’s sake but the girls managed to keep the fighting down to a minimum.  For most of the trip we spoke, laughed and teased.

I remember on the way Claudia, Michael’s sister messaged us:

“Remember this is meant to be a celebration of Mom’s life, let us not make it a morbid affair.”

I was thinking,

“Yeah right I feel pretty sad and once I am in Durban, it is going to hit me.”

Michael was very upset about missing the service but everybody assured us that it was impersonal and not what Angie, my Mom-in-Law would have enjoyed. 

The next surprise was that we did have a lovely time reconnecting with our family in Durban.  Claudia and Paul despite having little space went out of their way to make us at home.  For the past few years we have all had our own dramas and have barely spoken.  Angie’s death brought us back together and reminded us not to take each other for granted.  My sister in law Sadie is busy recovering from an illness that had her hospitalised for months.  I felt so much guilt for not being there for her and Martin and had gotten to the point that I simply did not contact them because I was too embarrassed to do so.  I thought that we were going to Durban to grieve but instead we were reunited with our family.

The 2 days that we spent in Durban were really a wonderful celebration of Angie’s life.  She was sooo young at heart and full of fun that we all agreed that growing old would have made her miserable.