She remembered me!!!

The other night the phone rang at 11:30pm. We were already in bed, I had just turned off my light.

It was my cousin Iggy in Australia, he had his mom with him at their little vacation home at the beach, and he had the phone on speakerphone, so she could hear the conversation.

My aunt suffers from Alzheimer's, or possibly dementia related to a stroke she had a few years back. As I have communicated with my cousin over the years, especially the time since she's been in Australia, I know that she is slowly but steadily declining. Sometimes things are worse than other times.

To my big surprise though, she was able to speak with me, in a Dutch/English language mix.
She sounded good! They had been looking at old family pictures, and she remembered everyone.
Then she asked me how old I was. And I realized: She knows who I am!

After I hang up the phone I turned to Wheelie and said: She knew who I was!!! And started to cry. It really affected me. It was a sweet conversation. It was lovely to hear her voice again. Especially knowing I'll probably never see her again.

We are all so scattered all over the world, my family, it is becoming scary indeed now that we're all getting older. We are scrambling to take care of our parents, even from afar, feel guilty for not being able to be there, feel the hurt of missing them all.

My sister understands my need to drag up the old relatives, get the stories, find the cousins, the aunties, the uncles, connect again, share stuff, and basically get to know the people who have not been part of my life for such a long time, but are my family, but she doesn't have that need at all.

My sister probably doesn't realize that when you go far away, you really lose contact not only with your relatives, but your friends, everyone you knew. While she went on being surrounded by everyone, her many friends, mom and dad, the siblings, relatives.

Little did we realize that by moving to the other side of the world, we basically cut ourselves off from everyone.
I mean, the first 10-20 years we would make a good effort to keep in touch, however slowly but surely, the gap widened.

And here we are. Some of us are finding each other again. Everyone is so excited. The emails are flying back and forth, the pictures, the memories, the secrets revealed (oh dear!) *grin*

I wish I had the whole day to delve into this stuff, but maybe it's a good thing I can't. We all need to take it slow, don't overdo it...we'll be there...and who knows, in a few years, there will be a huge reunion...somewhere...
My cousin Iggy has been bugging me for ages to come to OZ...I can't see myself going, not for at least another 4-5 years...perhaps we can organize something in Holland...ahhh...we dream....
But...where there's a will.....


I took Boo-Boo to the doctor this morning for her 12 month checkup. She is now 33 inches long, weighs 22 pounds and 13 ounces. She got FOUR shots, and was very upset for about 10 seconds. Then I got her dressed and she started waving and hollering" Bye Bye!!!! She knew we were done...what a trouper! They discovered that her little butt crack is crooked, so she is going to have an MRI done so see if her spine is straight, a precaution, I had never heard about testing children for scoliosis that young.

This afternoon we drove down south a ways to a farmer's market kind of supermarket, which carries the body lotion I like. Was a nice trip. Boo slept, we took the scenic route. Through red neck country. But everything was so green, and the lake was full again, and the weather was lovely....

All in all a decent day if you don't count the shots.

SGMKJ!