SpouseKitty's aunt has finally escaped her pain. She slipped into a coma about the time I wrote the last time about her. She never woke up.

She saw her two boys grow into young men, but won't see them married. She won't hold her grandchildren. Her husband is retiring this year, but the house will seem too big, I fear.

She passed on yesterday, actually. It took a day for the weight to settle. Yesterday, it was 'know;' it was just the recognition and realization. Today, it is 'feel.'

I don't know her very well. I've met her a handful of times, and each time she was smiling and cheerful, even the last one.

Thanksgiving of last year, the last time I saw her, she was weak, had bones so brittle her husband's kiss caused a fracture, and had more hoses and wires leading under her blankets than I could count.

She was home, I think because they did as much as they could. Maybe because the noise and activity in a hospital may not be conducive to healing. I don't know why, but she was home for Thanksgiving.

That was the last time Kitten saw her as well. She couldn't sleep tonight. As I said, 'know' vs. 'feel.' SpouseKitty and I talked a bit about it after we soothed her. She wasn't upset as in crying, just worried, sad, angry even.

I went through this recently with my mom's passing, so I know the range of emotion. I won't say "I know how she felt," because there's not just the type of emotion, but also the severity. We also suspect this has a cumulative effect on Kitten, how she hurting because two people close to her passed on recently.

Actually, my mom's passing didn't affect me nearly as much as I thought it would. I was notified while at Disney World, cut my visit short, made arranges to get home, and had an impromptu funeral. I was really too busy to work through it.

SpouseKitty didn't help trying to push me to push my relatives to do whatever estate business my mother left in Hong Kong to be done that that month so as to utilize my company's bereavement leave policy. No, that didn't help things.

Either way, I didn't have much a chance to deal with it. With her aunt's death, I'm feeling some of the tears, some of the aches work their way to the surface. Thoughts of words unsaid, sights denied, smiles and laughter lost.

Both my mother and SK's aunt suffered a great deal on their way off our plane. With both, I must confess a sigh of relief that their final trials ended. Both faced more pain than I can imagine, more fear than I can face. With both, I can say to myself without reservation that death was a great mercy to them.

That is how I'm dealing with the bitterness.