There comes a moment, often quietly and without warning, when a thought settles in the chest and refuses to leave. 
It is the realisation that when my time comes, when my name is spoken for the last time and the earth is waiting, only a very few will stand beside my grave.
It is not a bitter thought, but it is a heavy one.
Through researching my family history, I find myself face to face with death on a daily basis. Names followed by dates. Lives reduced to lines of ink. Infants buried before they were truly known. Parents outliving children. Entire families lost between censuses and records. 
In learning about their endings, I have been quietly led to consider my own. 
Who I am?
Who I have been?
And who has truly touched my life at a deep and emotional level?
Family history does that to you. It does not allow you to look away from mortality. It asks you to sit with it, to acknowledge it, and in doing so, to reflect on what truly remains when everything else falls away.
Throughout life, friends arrive like seasons. Some burst in full of warmth and laughter, staying just long enough to leave footprints on the heart. Others drift away so slowly that you do not notice until the silence where they once stood becomes unmistakable. I have watched friendships fade when life grew uncomfortable, when illness arrived uninvited, when grief entered the room and demanded more than small talk and convenience. I have learned these lessons many times, and each time they have left their mark.
When life is light, many walk beside you. When it becomes heavy, most quietly step away.
Family, though, is different. Family remains even when time stretches thin and distance grows wide. We are scattered now, living our lives in different places, caught up in responsibilities and routines that steal hours from us. We do not see each other as often as we should, and sometimes that absence aches more than words can say.
Yet I know, with a certainty deeper than logic, that they are the ones who would come. They are the ones who would stand there, not out of obligation or appearance, but because our lives are woven together in ways that do not unravel, even in death.
It is a hard truth to accept that so many friendships I once believed would last a lifetime have quietly disappeared. That the circle I imagined would surround me has grown extremely small. That my only true friends, in the end, are my family, and perhaps one or two treasured souls who have proven their love through time and hardship. 
There is grief in that realisation, and it deserves to be acknowledged. 
It is the grief of letting go of who we thought would stay.
When I imagine my funeral, I do not picture a crowded room or rows of faces filled with polite sadness. I imagine a handful of people who truly knew me. People who shared my stories. People who walked the same paths for a while. People who stayed when staying was not easy. People who stood by me through thick and thin, not because it was convenient, but because love asked them to.
Who will remember our stories when I am gone?
Who will recall the quiet moments, the laughter, the shared struggles, the strength found in simply being there?
Those memories will not live in a crowd. They will live in a few hearts that carry them honestly.
There is something deeply sobering about knowing that only a small number of people have truly cared for me across a lifetime. Yet there is also something profoundly comforting in it. I would rather be remembered by a few who loved me deeply than surrounded by many who came only to pretend they had always been there.
Love does not measure itself by numbers. It reveals itself by presence.
When my time comes, I do not need a full church or a long list of names. I need truth. I need the quiet dignity of being laid to rest by those who genuinely knew me, who did not leave when life became complicated or painful.
In the end, it is not the size of the gathering that matters. 
It is the depth of the love that stands there, steady and real, as the final goodbye is spoken.
And if only a handful stand at my graveside, then I will know my life was held honestly.
Until next time, 

Ta ta for now, 

Yours, Lainey.

🦋🦋🦋