it hurts my heart

I don't usually say things like it hurts my heart. Too goopy, too cliched. But tonight I did.

In the pool with Sam, he was asking about kids who don't look like their parents, and why. And we were talking about adoption, and the wierdness of genetics, and I mentioned that sometimes people who are NOT related DO look alike. Like people always thought Aunt Kitty and I were sisters, even though we were not blood related.

And Sam said, "Aunt Kitty's dead, right?"

It still feels surreal, and painful, and really not fair and not right. It's still shocking. So I keep her old emails. I think of her most every day. I plan the tattoo I will get in her memory. I try to make sure that her children, my cousins, know that I am thinking of them and that I love them, and that she loved them more than anything.

It still hurts my heart.