Leaving in silence

It's always sad when a life ends. Death is always tragic. Yet some endings seem somewhat more tragic when they occur in virtual silence. We often ask whether a tree that falls in a forest makes a sound if no one is around to hear it. One can say the same thing about a life.

Before I continue, a little level-set: I'm going to break a longstanding position on my blog of not writing about my extended family. While I write extensively about my wife and children, and the crazy little family unit that we've created, I am decidedly silent on the other folks who have cycled in and out of my life since I first came into the world. As such, you don't hear a whole lot, if anything, about cousins, siblings and other extendeds. It's not my place to write about them.

That'll change, temporarily, today. My father's cousin, Carol, died this week. She had celebrated her 62nd birthday before going to sleep. Just after midnight, she quietly passed away, leaving two children, both in their thirties. Her husband passed away years ago.

She lived a hard life, struggling with her weight, her health and life in general for as long as I can remember. Although as a child I didn't often appreciate her precarious position in life, I came to see glimpses of it in the few times I spoke to her as I got older. She would refer to us as the haves, with houses, cars and opportunities that she never had. She seemed sad that her life never seemed to gain the traction that mine so clearly did. I never knew how to respond. There was no way to reach through the gap between a charmed life and one decidedly less so. I could never find the right words.

It has been years since I saw her. We moved away, got busy, built a very different life in a very different place. We'd hear from extended family members every once in a while who had seen her in passing, but that was about it. Now this.

I write this because when I went to my hometown paper's obituaries page to read the death notice, I saw that there was none. When I continued on to the funeral home's site, her name was there, along with the date and time of the service. Nothing else. No words to remember her by. A half dozen other poor souls had passed away this week, and each one of them seemed to have left something behind. My cousin's page was empty.

It gnawed at me that someone could leave this planet with nothing more than silence, and I thought some words on my blog might ensure she isn't forgotten.

My cousin Carol lived a difficult life, one that wasn't always understood or appreciated by those whose lives she touched. She leaves two children who will doubtless miss their mother's influence as they chart a life without her.

Your turn: What do we leave behind? Please discuss.