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i lost an aunt. due to cancer. again. but i'm tired of writing about cancer so i'll try something else.

this aunt, along with another and my mom and my dad along with their husbands were great friends, when i, my brother and their offspring were children. small bright eyed children. the ones you see blowing out candles, the ones dressed to impress (or to embarrass us in latter years), the ones with ear to ear smiles in those family pictures. Because that's what we were, extended family. our parents were immigrants and they somehow found each other, befriended each other. that was almost an eternity ago...

we were best friends as children as were our parents as adults. us children had our nucleus disintegrate, in one way or the other. our parents' friendships somewhat distanced and maybe diminished a little. their internal spousal conflicts definitely had a part. so our childhood friendships diminished and disintegrated along with their relationships.

of our 3 families, 2 have felt the ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING loss of a parent. i, the fortunate one, have only felt distance to one of my parents. i mean fortunate in every sense of the word, their pain i could never understand or even begin to comprehend nor do i wish to, I'M TRULY SORRY!

all this made me think of how life and its inhabitants change and how relationships can be so apparently life lasting and then break away to strangeness. not real strangeness but that awkward strangeness, that distance, though the love remains... THE LOVE ALWAYS REMAINS... what hurts is that sometimes it takes tragedy to bring it forth.

i wonder how my own adult friendships will further evolve or dissolve. i hope they never dissolve.

RIP MR. SALH AND MS. SANGHA, my uncle and auntie neither will ever be forgotten.