My Aunt Margaret

Struck again by how profound the pastoral office is. I took friday off to do little and catch up on a few things I needed to catch up on. But the day was a mixed one.

By early afternoon the phone call came through that my aunt Margaret only had hours left. The damned cancer had finally got her and she was slowly letting go in the hospice. My Mam phoned tearful from just outside the room where Margaret lay surrounded by her young children. Mam spoke of how she and dad were the oldest there looking around at all these youngsters who had carried the enormity of this passing for 18 months and wondering what would become of them.

She spoke of the skill and gentle wisdom of the medical staff, so accustomed to this most profound of moments that they can recognise when it is Time. ‘She’s in the valley now,’ my Mam said, and I could barely keep my voice together.  I was struck again by how enormous a privilege and a burden it is to walk with the dying as far as one can before letting them go the last way alone. To stand on the threshold of another existence before turning back to face this one.

Margaret was the aunt most closest in age to me when I was growing up. She and Eddie were twins and 10 years or so separated us. So visiting Nana’s and sleeping over in Eddie’s room was really like being with a big brother and sister.

She had her share of troubles, as we all do, and maybe more than most. And though this is a release for Margaret, it’s not easy for the rest of us.