A shadow fell as we learned of a long-awaited death – the Doyenne, whom we stayed with in Wellington, and of whom I had grown very fond. What’s more she had died the previous morning our time, and due to the time differences and everyone being careful of each other’s sleep, we didn’t find out until this morning. So we – and more particularly the GF and even more so his mother, who was the Doyenne’s sister, had been waiting for her death, not knowing it had already happened.
Strange to think of those times in between when something happens and you learn about it. When my mother died I was in a flight that was landing, and in the early days I would often try to pin down that exact moment when she must have died, and replayed in my mind the drive from the airport to the arrival at home, there to learn she was already dead. It doesn’t mean anything, that delay – and in the past the delays would have been so much longer – and yet it does mean something.