My family is getting smaller.

Just one month ago on December 7th, my family buried my Aunt Violet.

Following the funeral ceremony, family and friends were invited to a luncheon in Violet’s honor, where I had the opportunity to dine with cousins I hadn’t seen in several years.

One of them was Carmen, an adopted child of the post-war period when young women, pregnant without benefit of a wedding ring from a wartime romance, their babies conceived in love but born in shame, were forced by their families to give up the infant to adoption from Catholic orphanages.

After doing much research, Carmen discovered that her biological father was an officer with Britain’s Royal Air Force stationed in Canada. Her mother was a young Canadian girl in love with this handsome airman who, after the war, left her to return to his life (and possibly a wife and family of his own) in England. Whether or not he knew she was carrying his child when he departed is not known.

This discovery excited Carmen who grew up in the US, an only child. With both her adoptive parents long passed, she finally felt free to satisfy her curiosity and research her biological history. Her efforts were rewarded when she acquired a yellowed photo of a uniformed young man who bore a striking resemblance to herself and her own young son. “Peter looks just like my father,” she marveled.

Carmen also learned she had several Canadian siblings with whom she would later meet and spend time developing familial bonds with sisters she never knew she had.

Sadly, Carmen’s biological mother — by then well into her 80’s — kept the “shameful” secret of her social stigma of those days, and refused to acknowledge her youthful indiscretion, much less admit Carmen was her child.

Carmen and I dined together at the luncheon. She confided she was in the midst of a difficult decision about her future. Already dealing with cancer that she and her medical team had tried to eradicate with chemo, the cancer still lingered, rendering her with one more life or death decision: should she “go for it” with another series of treatments? She was in turmoil, weighing the pros and cons. Would this one pull her through? What quality of life could she expect? And at her age (77), would her body take what was certain to be a rough road ahead? She was grappling with choices that weighed heavily on her mind.

A week or so later after conferring with her son, she decided to try again, take the radiation treatments. She was fatalistic about it, knowing the odds were not in her favor and might not guarantee her longer life. She was resolved to that possibility, but hoped for a miracle.

Sadly, the treatment ravaged her already frail body, and last week she was hospitalized in ICU, odds were against her survival.

Today we learned the cancer won, taking with it its host.

Oddly, I feel relieved for her that her worries, her pain, her battle is over. Carmen gave it her best, and now rests in peace, no longer faced with an excruciating decision she and so many other cancer sufferers must make. I hope/pray she knew Christ and was ready.

I am so grateful that she and I had the opportunity to reconnect after many years, and happily took this photo — the last one — of us together. Rest in peace, Carmen. You are loved.

Andrea and Carmen, Dec. 7, 2023