Personal remote loss

Saturday was my daughter's first communion. Although we're not intensely "big R" religious, we had a small family gathering at our house after the Mass. While my mother-in-law was at our home, and after the cake, etc was finished, we got a message from my husband's cousin.

This wouldn't be odd except for the fact that we never hear from this cousin. Long story short, we eventually touched base with this cousin and my mother-in-law got some bad news. Her brother had died earlier that day.

A day that started as a happy occasion was now clouded by a very complicated relationship and a death. My mother-in-law wasn't close with her brother, and it was not altogether a surprise that he died. But, it was a death just the same.

A personal loss for my MIL, but a remote one. A complicated loss.

Those of us around her readied ourselves to be there for her in her grief.
And it didn't really come. But it may.

And like the relationship, I expect that the grief may be messy: personal, yet distant or remote.