I never got to finish my review of last Christmas....I did mean to, but real life as always has a way of interrupting the best laid plans.
3 days before Christmas, my lovely Aunt in Long Island we`ve been visiting for the last seven years, sadly passed away. Getting that call from my cousin was one of the worst phone calls I`ve ever had. She had been poorly the previous week, but had been sent home from hospital and was supposed to get better.
I have so many lovely memories of her and our phone calls were regular and long! We really could chat the day away, and I was fortunate the Sunday before she passed and the previous Sunday we had chatted for many hours between the two calls. I am so glad I did have those calls with her.
I watched her wake live streamed last night, which was a little odd, but the way things are right now. If we could have flown over for it, we would have in a heartbeat.
She had planned to visit Scotland for one last time this year, but Covid put paid to that visit sadly. We were so close and I had told her in our last phone call I wasn`t ready to say goodbye to her just yet, we had several more visits to squeeze in with her.
Her two daughters and families are of course completely devastated. We know that feeling as Tom`s mum passed away on the same date but many years previous.
On Christmas morning we got a call from my sister to say one of our brother`s grandson, our great-nephew had died at 5.30am Christmas morning. He was 19.
I didn`t have a close relationship with him as we had left the country when he was born and afterwards we were still many hours away, but heartbroken for my brother, niece and all the family.
Mum is doing ok through it all which is a big relief.
However, we still managed to have a nice Christmas Day despite all the heartache around. I know my aunt would have wanted us to do that.....
Mum was at my sisters home for Christmas Day as they are all in the one bubble and we had some facetime with them which was lovely.....mum looked really well and had a lovely day too.
So, that was our Christmas......not the usual, between losing family members and Covid affecting all plans we usually have with friends over the Holidays.
But, we constantly reminded ourselves we were together and healthy......and did get some lovely presents too, enjoyed some lovely food and drinks.....and lots of DVD`s as Christmas TV sucked as usual.......it reminded me why we don`t watch a lot of tv in general.
I`m sorry for the not so cheery post.......but, I do hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and I know for sure we are all looking forward to the end of this year that hasn`t been so good to some people.
2021 has to be better........