I had gone to spend  last weekend in Chennai as it was my granddaughter's first birthday during the week.  I had just got back Monday and planned on blogging about my pleasant weekend.  But then on Tuesday morning I heard that my youngest maternal uncle, the last surviving member of my mother's family, had passed away and that the funeral was on Wednesday, in Bangalore.  So it was that my husband & I drove to Bangalore staying overnight on the way there and back and got back just this evening.
My uncle was the youngest of eight and a sweet person, a loving husband, a good father and a great grandfather, as one of his grandsons said in a speech about him.  My best memories of him are when he came visiting my mother, just about a month before she died. He will be missed, but I do think that he was quite ready to go.  May he rest in peace.