Last week when I was up for Nigel's birthday I'd popped into see my Auntie Maureen at Castle Hill. She'd been diagnosed with cancer, and just before that weekend been given the news it was terminal. Well, today she lost her fight. Mum rang me earlier to tell me. So, after a little cry I came upstairs and started to write this.
Now, I say Auntie in the term of family friend who was an Auntie to us. And in fact, she's more of a second mum. Someone who's there to talk to, sort things out, and listen. Not something I've experienced as much as Nigel and Ian, since I've been tucked away in Stevenage the last 14 or so years. In fact I've seen little of her and Mike, unlike both Nigel and Ian. But it still hurts. More so that she never got to meet Jules properly, only really knowing her from the occasional times she read the weblog, "...as and when Emma showed me how to do it....".
I remember as a kid going round to play, they lived just around the corner from East Park, and Chris was about the same age as me. We'd always have crisps and those little stubby drinks of pop, the ones I struggle to find these days, no doubt due to the high sugar and E-numbers that they were probably full of. And we'd have nights over there, the whole Bell family and Denman family. Laughing and giggling 
They were there when Dad went, and when Nana went too. A support.
She can't be in any pain now, and thinking it through, she'll be getting to know Jules and Toby, and no doubt introducing her to Dad if she hasn't already found him 
