Another Death

On April 30th, I lost my second mom. She was my aunt, married to my dad’s brother. It was an unexpected death and it happened fairly quickly. She was at home, had dinner with her family, and then started to not feel well. Shortly, she began vomiting blood and then she became unresponsive. The ambulance was called and she was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later.

At first we thought it was heart failure (she had an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure). Then, with all the blood, we thought perhaps she had ruptured something inside and she had bled out quickly. This week, her doctor talked to my uncle and he told her that she died from a combination of Plavix and aspirin. The doctor then simply said, “She should still be here.”

From what I have gathered since hearing that, it is widely known that Plavix and aspirin should never, ever be combined. I am under the impression that her heart doctor had prescribed both for her, but the more I’m learning, there is no way a doctor who didn’t have their head up their ass would ever do such a thing. I know that Plavix is a blood thinner. Aspirin is also a blood thinner, but is also known to create ulcers in the stomach. I’m only guessing here, but I believe that she had gotten an ulcer from the aspirin, and when it started to bleed, her blood was so thin that it didn’t stop. I’m not a medical professional so I could be completely WAY off base.

Whatever the reason, we now know that her death was preventable. “She should still be here.” It’s heartbreaking. She and my uncle were married fifty-six years. I have loved both of these people with all of my heart for my entire life. Along with dealing personally with her loss, I now have to sit back and watch this beloved old man grieve for his love…his best friend, his partner, for over half a century. It’s not fair. It’s just not.

My parents both worked and my aunt was a stay at home mom. She took care of my brother and I, when they were at work, until we were both five years old and started school. We spent more time with her than we did our actual parents. She raised us. She helped define who we are. She engrained her beliefs and morals upon us.

There is a Christmas ornament, that is still hung on my mom’s tree every year, that my aunt helped my brother make when he was a little kid. She liked doing crafts and always had something for us to do. When my brother said her eulogy at her funeral, he had that ornament sitting on the podium with him.

I will never meet a more maternal woman than my aunt. She oozed safety, love, and warmth. New babies in the family had to go to her first at family gatherings. You couldn’t keep a baby away from her. She was a goddess in her maternity and womanhood. She embodied the feminine.

She was there for me through the death of my dad and my grandma. She has always been the one I would go to for comfort. Even now, I wish with everything I have that I was a child who could climb into her lap and let her wrap her arms around me. I would bury myself into her and she would give me kisses and tell me that everything will be okay. I would believe her. But, she’s not here now. No hugs and kisses for me. And everything is definitely not okay…

This song was sung at my aunt’s funeral. Not my type of music at all and I had never heard of it before. However, it’s like it was written just for her. It makes me cry. It will always be her song…