I was fine all day today, until I went to my aunt's school webpage. She wrote a letter to her students three days before she died, and in it she talks about how last week she celebrated her 3rd year of health since her colon cancer diagnosis.

And then I saw a letter from the principal about my aunt's death.

I don't know how I will ever be able to deal with this. I know she is dead, but I still cannot imagine anything without her.

I think about the particular way she talked. I wonder what will happen to the house. Without the hours of gardening my aunt put in, her beautiful garden will be overtaken with weeds in a few weeks.

My uncle consented to an autopsy, which I am grateful for. Originally, it wasn't going to happen, and it would have been even more awful for me and my family to not know what happened. I want to know. I don't want to go on telling people that she was healthy and collapsed while hiking. It doesn't make sense.

I fly out for the funeral on Friday morning.

(My aunt who died is the second on the left in that picture. That is a photo of the four sisters that I took in December.)