Some days, life feels like this picture

[mopinko]

15. they do seem to go in clusters sometimes.

same time frame- i lost my sister, not only not a surprise, but something of a sigh of relief, but still.
then my brother-in-law, very unexpected, and left me doing much to support my sister.
then i fell in love online w someone and we were about to take that into the real world when he was dx'd w als. saddest part of that is that trying to adjust to that caused him to waste the bit of time we had. did get to spend some time w him, but he was a quadriplegic by then. came on terribly fast, and barely able to communicate now. wont be more than a couple months now, which is about 5x faster than usual. service related illness all these years after nam.

plus a parrot that the grandkids let out of the house, never to be seen again, and 2 adorable little dogs put down after 15 loving years.

prior to that it had been well over a decade since i had lost anyone i was close to. i have been very lucky to have had few people close to me die. and that was mostly parents who had long lives and timely deaths.
but i am getting to the age. 65 soon, and 6th of 7 kids.
pretty many people i grew up w have already passed. it will speed up now.

not only dont you really get over it, it accumulates.
my load got a whole lot heavier in that time. changed.