Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
Beyond, beyond, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakening, rejoice!

― Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) mantra

My mother’s brother died yesterday.  I don’t exactly know how old he was, but he was substantially older than my mother, who is herself in her 70s.

Uncle Tony had a pretty tough life, at one point being declared missing in action during the Suez Crisis in 1956.  After leaving the army he worked in heavy industry in Lancashire and fathered four children, my cousins, three boys and a girl.  Two of his sons saw action themselves as part of the British army, in the Falklands conflict (1982) and Gulf War I (Desert Storm, 1991). 

Sadly, the marriage ended badly but Tony continued to work hard to support his family.  As a child I remember trips to Lancashire to visit them and, although it was somewhat of a culture clash for my family of soft middle-class southerners, I always enjoyed seeing my cousins and uncle, and am still in touch with some of them. 

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