Today I attended the memorial service for my best friend's boyfriend. It was a meaningful service honoring the memory of a kind and good man. During the service, two young nieces spoke lovingly of their Uncle Roger. A nephew gave a eulogy that made me feel that I knew the man I had only met twice. At the end of the service, a color guard folded an American flag and presented it to his son, a soldier himself. Roger's father sat on the second row, quiet and stoic - appearing unsure of what was going on. Roger's ex-wife, a previous girlfriend, and his girlfriend of the past year (my best friend) all comforted each other - joined in the grief of losing a man they all had loved. It was strange and touching at the same time.
Right after I left the service, I called PawPaw to tell him that I would get home later than I had anticipated. We had planned to get together tonight for dinner and to watch TV. He said he had very sad news to tell me. His cousin, Kathy - a bright, precocious eleven-year old when PawPaw and I got married in 1969 - died this morning. She was forty-five. Her teenage son had gone to tell her that she had a phone call, and he found her dead in her bed. Probable heart-attack. She leaves behind a husband and two teenage sons.
It seems almost like a season of mourning. Three times recently, tragedies have struck someone close to me. Hopefully, the saying that bad luck comes in threes is true. I'll fly to Georgia with PawPaw tomorrow morning in order to attend Kathy's memorial service on Sunday. There won't be any camping this weekend. The Median Sib will have no new posts until Sunday evening or Monday.
There is nothing like death to make one appreciate life - to see the value in each minute spent with loved ones.
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