Funerals, Loss, Parting

I'm off to a funeral in the morning. My Uncle Frank, the husband of my beloved Aunt Marion.

I find myself full of regret.

Regret that there wasn't enough time with them both. We never lived near one another - the nearest was the hundred odd miles which separated our homes as I grew up, which then turned to a thousand miles as I lived in Europe and then multiplied by four when I lived in Africa.

We would meet at the odd family occasion. Sometimes we would visit them. One holiday they spent with us, on safari.

It was always a delight to be with them. To have long conversations, to hear about their lives, their romance with one another. There was never enough time.

Yet, looking back, I do not know what I could have changed. We enjoyed the times we had together, however brief. We valued the letters, the phone calls. I treasure the recipe book, now over full and battered, which my aunt gave me on my twenty first birthday.

And I treasure their memories.