Today, I reached a milestone in my life. No, it isn't the so called big five-o. Not yet, anyway. My aunt - my late mother's older, and only, sister last night slipped from this life into whatever waits beyond.

When I was growing up, Auntie always seemed to be around with quiet words of wisdom and gentle encouragement. Like most of us, I suppose, I took my troubles and concerns to the elder statespersons within the family, and, for the most part, they would rise to the occasion out of the wisdom born of their experience, and dish out good advice - which I sometimes even took!

Probably, given that I am the youngest offspring of two youngest children, it was inevitable that my late arrival would mean that three of my grandparents would have already made their final departure before I was born. The fourth, my mother's father, was the light of my young life; all too soon the brief, bright candle of his life sputtered and flickered out.

My mother's grief at the time was too deep for her otherwise tender heart to relate to another's pain, yet, between them, she and my Aunt held me together, and made sense of the loss. In my bewilderment at this extremely unwelcome change, I clung to my remaining family, and found a measure of peace.

My father had several brothers and sisters, and they too provided anchors for a somewhat wild ( I always preferred to be called free-spirited) child. However, over the years, they too have slipped from my protesting grasp, one by inevitable one. The last of them, including Dad, said their goodbyes over twenty years ago, and their going wrenched my heart.

But there was always the seemingly inseparable duo of my Mother and her sister. I relied on them more than I knew.

Auntie would rush in and out of my life on an exotic tidal wave. She travelled to far-away places with strange sounding names - and brought back souvenirs and stories that fired a youthful imagination with dreams. No matter how far and wide she went, she was always there when the big events occurred, and that is something that I can only look back on now with wonder. How could she manage to always be in the right place at the right time? But the fact is that she was.

When my mother died, Auntie was my solace (and my little granddaughter, albeit all-unwittingly). It was hard for me to see her tears, drowning as I was in a sea of my own. It was her hand that held mine, and there was no need for words to pass between us.

Now she is gone, the last of the older generation of my family, the last refuge from the storm laid bare. And, as I look down at my fingers flying over the keys, realisation dawns that I, together with my brother and sister, am now the oldest generation of my family. It feels strange.

How will I cope, now that I am the one who will be expected to dispense wise advice? I don't feel like a fountainhead of wisdom. In fact, not only do I not have all the answers, I strongly suspect that, most of the time, the meaning of the question eludes me. In that, I probably don't feel any different to those who have trodden this path before me.

Somewhere in the depths of my mind , I can see my Aunt, smiling and nodding. All my aunts and uncles, great aunts, parents and grandfather seem to be there too, the serried ranks of shadows behind them the blurred and unknown faces of my forbears.