I don’t know my realtives on the French-Canadian side of my family too well, but I know that it’s been a hard few years. The uncle who used to chase us around the house hollering mock-threateningly (with a huge smile on his face) that he was the Cookie Monster and he was going to eat us up, he passed on not so long ago. (It feels like a little while ago.)
And I just go the eulogy for my uncle Yves by email from my cousin Carlo. Liver cancer, sudden, unexpected. He passed away about a week and a half ago. I didn’t hear until now, but that’s not so weird, given how out of touch I am with my sisters, and how sadly occasional my calls home to Mum are. (It’s even more occasional I get through, of course, but that’s another matter entirely.) And actually, I think I’ve been the last to hear about every death in our family. It’s a function of living far, far away, in part.
Anyway, I didn’t really know Yves very well — less well than some of my other uncles, really — but I still feel like something’s gone missing. Being so far from family, all my life — not just in Korea, but in Western Canada, too — I guess I missed something the other cousins didn’t, a kind of constancy.
I haven’t gotten through to my Mum yet. I think I’ll try calling again now…
… and I didn’t get through. So I think I’ll go bug this little one and see if she cheers me up a bit…
