Why February 1st hurts so much

photo credit: www.metaphoricalplatypus.com

There are few periods during a year’s 12 months that hurt more and when I experience an immense amount of sadness and grief than the first few weeks of the year (January) and February 1st. For the past 12 years, I have known exactly why this happens: because these were the weeks leading to my Auntie’s death. My Auntie was my Mom’s older sister. Never married, she took care of us (and especially me).

My Auntie would make my breakfasts and lunches on days when my Mom and Dad were too pressed for time and had to take care of my other four brothers too. I stayed at my Auntie’s all the time and she drove me everywhere: from theatre and dance practice to volleyball practice to school, to my best friends’ houses, etc. She was, for all practical purposes, my second mother.

So when we found out that she had lung cancer, my world disintegrated in a matter of hours. I felt so impotent. I spent countless hours studying about cancer research trying to figure out if there was something we could do. I called and emailed doctors, begging them to let my Auntie into experimental treatments. Nothing was enough. My Auntie was Stage IV and thus there was pretty much nothing to be done. And when she finally passed away on February 1st, 1999, I crumbled.

Year after year, I feel the same sense of loss and grief right after December 31st, and all the way leading up to (including) February 1st. And then, for some reason, I seem to recover emotionally after February 2nd. I think about my Auntie every day, and as I was walking to the bus stop this cold morning, I thought to myself “well, one thing is certain – my Auntie would be proud of what I have accomplished and how far I have come.

I miss you, Auntie L. I really do.

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