I have lost so much in these past three months that I sometimes can’t fathom anything at all.
I wish I had more photos of her but she would get mad at me every time I tried to post something. One is a screenshot I had taken of her message, along with an app I forgot to delete that kept giving me silly reminders. I remember laughing at it because it was the first time in a long time that I hadn’t gone over to my dad’s house, and I was already missing everyone there. The other photo is one I took of my cousin Breezie doing Penny’s makeup before we all went out for drinks. She hated it and told me not to take a picture, but it was such a cute moment that I did it anyway.
My cousin Penny flew in from Sydney in late August and stayed for 2 months to help the rest of the family adjust to the loss. The last time I had ever seen her was over 10 years ago. In 2 months she was here, I spent almost every day with her. I never knew I could get so close to someone as quickly and as much as I did to Penny. We spent every night together, talking outside for nearly half the day, about family, our lives, and what life as a whole will be like without aunty Flo in it anymore. We cooked together, made fun of our dads together, watched movies together. Sang together. I have never laughed more in my dad’s house than I have with her. She was sarcastic. She was straight forward and told you like it is if you were in the wrong. She was also patient. Soft-spoken. She was everything I hoped to be when I get married, start a family. She spoke of her daughters and her husband so highly. I confided in her and told her about my own faults and heartbreak, something I never even discuss with any of my friends because its hard to talk about. All she did was promise me that true love is out there and that I will find it. She kept repeating, “I’m telling you, Ash. It’s real and it’s there.” Tiff and I couldn’t believe we had lost someone so important to us while simultaneously gaining someone in the same regard. The two months were bittersweet, but overall I was so grateful to have spent so much time with her, and the rest of my family. We all grew so much closer since my aunt had passed, and Penny made that a lot easier to do.
She helped Tiff and I arrange the funeral, all three of us spoke at both memorials we had for my aunt. I never felt that I had to take on the roles that I’ve had to. It has been the most difficult, yet the easiest thing to do for myself and my family. Financially, emotionally, physically. With that said, it was only easy because of them.
On Penny’s last day in LA, Tiff and I were supposed to give her letters to thank her for everything she had done for us, but we never got around to actually writing them. We also knew she hates being too mushy, so we decided we would just send them to her with a necklace we’d buy for her, as a surprise. When we took Penny, to the airport. I hugged her and I cried, and of course, she said, “Ash, are you CRYING”… I couldn’t express why, and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was just a “thank you”. She understood, hugged me, probably told me to stop being a baby, and just told tiff and I that if we didn’t keep touch or talk often, she’d slap us. I agreed to the deal and texted her all the funny things going on once she had left.
The last time I texted her was on thanksgiving. It was already a difficult day because it was the first thanksgiving we were celebrating without my Aunty Flo. All Tiff and I did that day was talk about how much we missed Penny, reminiscing on all the fun times we had with her. I told Tiff we need to send our letters and she agreed and suggested we send it around Christmas time.
The very next day, Tiff texted me asking if I was going over to the house and I was so confused. I called my dad, and all he could say was, “Penny died.” It’s funny, well not so much, but the idea and the process of loss. When my Aunty Florence passed, there was time to process the idea of her being gone, because she had been sick. Even then, I wasn’t prepared. Penny was sudden. I had just spoken to her the day before. I drove to my dad’s immediately and called my mom, and couldn’t stop crying. I could hardly breathe. My heart just felt so empty. I felt so upset with the world and started thinking about everything Penny had said to me all at once.
Penny, Tiff, and I had made a plan to watch the sunset together before she left, as she mentioned she doesn’t get a good view of it when she’s in Sydney. She was so busy on her last day in LA that we never got to take her to see the sunset. And I’m so upset with myself that she’ll never get to see it.
I had such a heavy heart and would cry at the thought of my life without Aunty Flo in it, and how my children or anyone I love again will never know the love that Aunty Flo possessed and gave so freely. After I got so close to Penny, it seemed as though tiff and I now had another family member to feel that with. Not as a replacement, but an addition. Neither of us are as close to any of the other aunts, but with Penny being much older than us, yet still a cousin of ours, it made for a beautiful relationship and one that was such a surprise that it only left me filled with gratitude that she came and stayed for so long.
When Penny was still here, she said that a white butterfly kept visiting the house, almost every day leading up to my aunt’s memorial. I witnessed it once and kept hitting Penny’s arm saying, “I saw it!”. I told her I’d keep an eye out for more white butterflies. I stopped believing that God existed the day my aunt died. I had a long conversation about it with Penny before she left. We talked about heaven, what it entails. We joked about it for a while, and laughed it off and just hoped that it was real. Only a couple days after Penny had passed, I begged to nothing and asked for a sign that heaven, or something good after this life exists. I was out with my father at a red light, when a white butterfly flew right into my window and kept tapping on it until it eventually flew away. I screamed and hit my dad’s shoulder.
She’s been gone for 2 weeks now, and I still can’t believe she isn’t here. I keep going back to our messages, thinking of all the times I had with her, and how I never got to properly thank her for everything she’s done for me. I didn’t get to make it to her funeral, but we planned a get together for her friends and family here in LA this past Saturday. Tiff and I had to read her eulogy her daughters wrote and I could feel everyone in the room silently agreeing with how true their words were. She would say that mothers could love their children so much that their hearts could just burst. The way I feel, even with all the loss my family and I have experienced these past 3 months, and my own experiences in the last 2 years, has left me with so much to learn from, and helped shape who I’m becoming now. I’m happy with who I am. I finally feel like a good daughter, sister, friend. Penny was and is one of the best surprises my life was gifted with and one of the main reasons I even feel this way. The gratitude I feel from that alone, on top of the love I’m able to give and receive daily from friends and family, makes me feel like my own heart could burst, even when it feels so empty.
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