I found out yesterday from my mom that my Aunt Sandra passed away from cancer this week.

Now my relation to Sandra is a little different. My biological grandfather on my mom’s side died when he was 45. My granny remarried several times, and finally settled on my Granddad George. Hi daughter was Sandra. They got married a month before I was born so as not to take away the glory from my mom (I was the first grandchild on both sides of the family).

When I was 18, my grandparents got divorced, effectively making my granddad not my granddad anymore; legally at least.

The thing is, he is the only granddad on that side that I have ever known, and was also a father figure to my uncle who was almost too young to remember his real dad. So even though he was no longer legally related to us, he is still my granddad, and therefore Sandra was my aunt.

My poor aunt Sandra was grossly obese (we’re talking seatbelt-extender, 2 airline seat, mammoth proportions obese) and sadly lived alone for her whole life, never marrying. It was quite a sad existence from what I understand. Our family was close to George but not to her, so I don’t have very many memories of her.

Anyway, she was 60, overweight and had what they think was pancreatic cancer. She found out around Christmas and had been receiving chemo treatments. We knew about it but didn’t know how serious it was. No one did.

So it was a big surprise to us when we found out that she passed away early this week. Her own father didn’t even know how bad it was. Someone called him and he rushed to the hospital but she was already in a coma by the time he got there. Late that night she passed on.

I’m not so sad about her passing–I think it would have been a relief to her. We all knew death was coming and were ready for it, just not so soon. I think she’s happier now. I know I would be. So I feel happy for her release.

I really feel sad for my grandpa though. He is a very stoic person, not too comfortable with emotion. He saw some horrors in WWII and was blown out of the water. There has been much sadness in his life and yet he marches on. I didn’t know if calling him would be the right thing to do, but I wanted to reach out to him–he’s my granddad after all.

We sort of just chitchatted about mundane things like my trip to vegas and his winemaking. I got the impression that he didn’t really want to talk about Sandra, but I know that he misses her….

I had to take a break writing this; my tears are finally coming now.

As we were saying goodbye he called me Sandra and I feel terrible.

I can’t type anymore.