Last week my mothers Uncle died. He'd been sick a long time (cancer) and in a way, it was expected.

I remember as a child going to their house and playing on the bank of the river that flowed behind their property. The river bed was made up of large rounded stones and I recall searching out the small flat stones and learning to skim them over the water.

I remember eating what they called 'paper lantern gooseberries' which where small yellow/orange fruit that where covered by a papery skin similar to a Chinese paper lantern.

(My memory is very clear about these 'Chinese Gooseberries' but I've never had them or seen them anywhere since -- I googled and found a picture.)

I remember both he and his wife seemed very old to me, when my mother told me their age this week I was surprised at how young they are.

I remember that their names were always run together, as if they where not two separate people, but a single identity,  team.

His wife, Aunty Mavis, nursed her husband through his illness, grieved for him, organized his funeral, farewelled his body into the ground, and then less than an hour after he'd been buried, died of a massive heart attack.

This past Friday - A week to the day later - Aunty Mavis was buried, not in a plot beside her husband, but in the same grave on-top of him - that was how they wanted it.

They lived together and died together, a team.

I think this is truly a case of dying of a broken heart.

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