Changes

This afternoon, I got a call which told me me two things.

First, my cousin's daughter had successfully delivered a child after a difficult pregnancy and an induced delivery. Her mother, my cousin, had come up to their home to be with her during the pregnancy.

Second, my cousin didn't make it to the hospital with her daughter. The morning that they were supposed to have the induced delivery, she didn't come down when it was time to leave. She had died in her sleep.


She was one year older than me. We were pretty close as kids, though considerably less as we got older. She had a much rougher life than me, married a fellow who took ill for a year, and who had an online affair with a younger woman while he was home recuperating; had two daughters and one son, one who got married and divorced, one who got pregnant and then married. She never graduated from high school, worked a series of clerical and menial jobs, and ended up virtually penniless.

Makes you think.