Two and a half weeks ago, I called my Auntie Jo in Boston to see about coming up for Thanksgiving.

She said it just really made her day (she said it quite a few times) that I would be able to come up, that she'd finally see me for the first time in 15 years.

I was so, so, so excited about going up there for Thanksgiving.

She had been in the hospital, but when I spoke to her, she'd already been in the rehab part for a few days and would be home by Saturday. She sounded good, better than I remembered her ever sounding .. her voice wasn't as raspy as usual. We talked about who was whose Godparents (Auntie Jo and Uncle Bob were my older brother's Godparents, then their sons was Godfather to my twin brother and me) and we talked about some family news up there and my military career and some other chitchat. I started not being able to understand her too well at the end because the connection was crackly the whole time but getting worse at the end, and I decided that it was getting too frustrating saying "what?" so much and having her straining to repeat herself. So I listened as best I could and eventually it was time for her to go, and so we said goodbye and I went on being very, very excited about my plans to visit.

Today, at about 0842, while I was sitting at my desk in my Working White uniform and settling in after my morning cup of coffee and my attempts to hit the ground running from the 0730 start of the workday.... I saw a new e-mail in my inbox from my mother (which was an e-mail from my father which she forwarded to me) with the subject line of Aunt Mary Jo.

Auntie Jo passed away yesterday. I guess sometime before going home from rehab, she took a turn for the worse and didn't recover. Her husband and sons were with her, and I know she's done suffering now.

But I burst out crying when I read that, and disappeared into one of the unmanned offices and it took a while before I was cried-out. It was made very clear to me that I could go home for the day, but I didn't want to because what would I do at home? The funeral plans were going to be made during the day, so I would just go home and cry a lot more and then sleep and then cry... and I was fixin' to have all evening and my two off-days to do that. So I decided it would be better to be there and give my mind a chance to focus on other things as a break in between, and be able to grieve more thoroughly not worrying about work had or had not been done.

It hurts so bad. I was so excited about finally seeing her. Once, when I was planning on driving up there from VA, she said that since she hadn't seen me in so long, she just kept picturing a ten year old driving a car. She said even though she could hear my voice all grown up and she'd gotten several pictures and letters from me over the years, she just still thought of me as the little girl she last saw.

I looked forward to being with her as a grown-up, having grown-up conversations. Having my Aunt there in person with me in real life, face-to-face, to bestow all the womanly wisdom on me that she'd been storing up all her life. She was always this really special woman to me, wise and peaceful and ... unbeatable.

When my cousin told me she was in the hospital, I said that I could come up anytime, immediately, if needed. He said she was in the rehab section and doing better and I shouldn't need to rush. I kinda wish I had called a week earlier when she was still bad off so that I would have rushed up there just in time for her to be recovering... Maybe.

I don't have many family members, and I'm losing so many of them.... I really think she was, in an odd way, maybe the one I felt closest to even with our infrequent contact. It was like, even though she still pictured me as ten, we could always pick up as if we were never out of touch. And even though all the trips I tried to plan never worked out, I always knew that I COULD go, that I was always very welcome and that I was a real part of their family.

I wish I had gone there instead of DC in April.. or that I had made it work out before. I mean, I'm not beating myself up as if I just neglected to make the right decision, I just wish I could have not let 15 years and every moment of my opportunity to see her slip away.

She's been sick for so long, and I've known for so long that I couldn't take that time for granted, I couldn't assume she'd be there in a few months to see when it was more convenient... but something else was always happening or whatever the case was. And when I put in a request to go up last year, that one got disapproved. The one chance I really made myself to see her and an outside force stopped it.

Maybe God was protecting me from remembering her other than healthy and strong and peaceful.

I'm leaving on Tuesday for her funeral, Lord willing, and I am so grateful to hopefully be able to go. At work today, I was thinking that I wouldn't go, because I didn't want that to be the way I saw my cousins and uncle for the first time in so long... I figured that I could say goodbye and get my closure at her gravesite just as well as at her funeral. But the truth is that I couldn't get the same closure, and I want to hear what everyone has to say about her, and I want to be there with my uncle and my cousins and even my father during this time. Sure, I haven't seen them in fifteen years, but like my Aunt, I always felt more connected to them than I could explain.

I was so excited about going to Boston, finally, when I was making my plans for Thanksgiving... this was not how or why I wanted to be going. But I'm glad to have the chance, and grateful to be able to say goodbye.