Think I'll miss you forever, Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky

Not so long ago, I posted about my youngest sister who was in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and her battle with stage four colon cancer.

Then even less time I posted about going to South Africa to meet my youngest niece, who at nine months old I had never met.

Yesterday I returned from South Africa, my twelve day visit extended to six weeks.

I got to meet my niece Olivia, who is a wonderful, delightful baby and I also got say goodbye to my youngest sister Rosie who finally lost her battle. My wonderful, delightful niece won't remember her courageous feisty aunty.

Right now I can't begin to describe my grief. It's strange, I don't really miss her all the time and most of the time I am doing fine. Then the grief creeps up on you, like some malevolent miasma, seeping through the cracks in your precious façade of normality.

In the end it was very sudden and very peaceful, and for that we are all very grateful, but it was just under two years since Rosie's her diagnosis and there was so much more she wanted to do. She was just 31.