Sadly we said goodbye to my cousin today... he was 49 years too young.
Fucking Cancer!!!
Funerals suck, no matter the age or the way in which one has passed, because saying goodbye to someone for the final time is such a painful thing to do... it's a slap in the face reminder of how precious and fragile life is.
It forces you to question yourself... did I take the time whilst they were alive to learn enough about this person to do their memory justice?
Have we learnt enough about them and their time on this earth, their thoughts, their beliefs, and their stories to be able to completely encapsulate their special place in our family's footprint for future generations to remember them by?
It's a sobering thought and the scary thing is - I fear it is something that many of us leave too late to consider.
Last night we were at my parent's house and we got to talking about family members we have lost.
We talked about my cousin and then we moved on to my beautiful grandmother who passed away nearly 15 years ago.
I so loved that cheeky woman and barely a day goes by that I don't think about her and wish she was still here with us.
I had a very close relationship my Nan especially given that she moved in with us when I was about seven and so I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with her over the years listening to her stories about when she was a child and when my mum was a little girl.
You know, those precious stories that only the person who lived them could possibly tell?
As I listened to my mum speak about our Nan, I became painfully aware that despite what I thought, I actually only know a fraction of my Nanna's overall story. I can't help but feel sad about that and wish that I had asked more, listened more and taken the time to learn as much as I possibly could about her... whilst she was still with us.
As my mum went on to talk about her uncles and told my boys stories of her father and her grandfather and their time at war, I realised just how big a gap there was in my knowledge of my own mum's life, the life that existed for her and my Dad before my brother and I were born - their childhood stories and special memories etc.
I looked at our boys and the same goes... how much haven't we shared with them yet too?
I don't want to leave behind any gaps when I am gone.
With all that in mind, we as a family have decided to do a series of video interviews with my Mum and Dad and my brother, my husband and myself etc, with the idea being that we ask the questions of each and we tell our stories and share our special memories, in our words and our voices for our children and their children to listen to in years to come.
Some might say that this idea is a little morbid, you know worrying about protecting our memories before we have gone and all that, but I prefer to think of it as taking the time learn about each other and to celebrate who we are whilst the opportunity exists.
I know we can't go through life worrying about the 'what ifs' or the gaps we might behind after we are gone, but perhaps we should be wary of taking for granted the untold stories and memories we have not yet shared or heard from our loved ones.
You just can't recover those once you have said goodbye.
RIP cousin David.
May your story live on forever.
Have you ever done anything like family interviews?