One of my aunts, she's a nice lady. I like her. There were years when I was younger where she had a distance and the best part of 15 years went by and my family and hers never visit.
Then, She retired at some point.
Maybe about 2013 or 2014, my aunt came to our door step with her husband. To drop in for tea and a chat.
She kept regular visits since then. Maybe about once or twice a year. I liked her visits.
There's something not right any more. The last time she visited was about 18 months ago. She never called since. She's my mother's sister. She doesn't call my mother any more. My aunt stopped sending Christmas cards a few years ago due to the price of stamps in favour of a Christmas message.
Over the past few months my mother's birthday came and went and my mother got no message from her.
Christmas and New year came and went, nothing.
My mother is odd. I think she has the onset of dementia. She is just so odd. That sister triggers her for some reason. Not in front of her face but as soon as she's gone my mother usually breaks out in a rant - 'who does she think she is flaunting her size 8 dress'. My aunt is not a size 8 by the way and she's not flaunting anything.
I encouraged my mother over the past few months just to call her but my mother refused.
I do have her number and I did text her but I got a vague response from my aunt. It was short and one sided from her.
My mother keeps writing off my aunt blaming her coldness on her sons death that happened a few years ago but I think there's something more going on like maybe she is estranging herself from her sister (my mother). My mother hardly went to her nephews funeral and when she did turn up she treated it like a teenage disco getting lost with a few more and hiding at the back of the church in the toilets with a few more of her siblings.
I am missing my aunt and her visits. I kept meaning to visit her but she lives on the other side of the county and I don't drive. I have been meaning to take a Saturday sometime and take bus journeys but I never got a chance to do that.