Like sands through the hourglass...

So, as my last couple of entries illustrated, 2018 has not been a good year so far. If I weren’t already aware of my mortality, that concept has been getting hammered home this year. First there was my friend Ed, followed a mere 3 days later by my beautiful and amazing cousin Jennifer. The trio (death comes in threes, right?) was rounded out by my wife’s lifelong best friend Diane less than two weeks later.
For this entry I must refer back to Ed. I was actually friends with Ed by proxy through his wife Donna. She and I worked together at Shop Rite and she befriended me when my ex-wife and I split (i.e. she offered a shoulder). Then we formed a bowling team with our co-workers, and that was the start of a 20+ year friendship. I started hanging out with her and her family quite often, and when we lost a bowler on our team, we coaxed Ed into joining. Ed had unofficially retired his bowling shoes but he begrudgingly said he would join us. We quickly found out we had created a monster, but that’s a story for another time.
Anyway, over the years we had become a part of each other’s families. Parties, holidays, day trips, etc. I love the Cooks. So it broke my heart to lose Ed. Not even so much for me, but because I knew how much of a hole his passing left in the lives of his kids, Kara and Sean, and especially his wife Donna. He was the yin to her yang. In recent years our lives have gone in different directions, but we stayed in contact and I knew the last 4 months have been a stressful time for the family. Donna was frustrated that her new granddaughter was 3000 miles away, but she has been looking forward to following through on the family’s plan to move out to Spokane to be with her son and granddaughter. However, the stress of losing her husband of 38 years and having to deal with settling his affairs, along with having to get the house packed up while going through his things was taking a toll. Donna is a very upbeat extrovert and a people-pleaser; sometimes at the expense of her own well-being.
Her beautiful daughter Kara is a socially anxious introvert who rarely, if ever, calls anyone on the phone.

Where am I going with all this?

Tuesday, September 25

7:49 a.m. the phone rings. I’m sleeping and I think it’s my alarm (not yet having the awareness to realize it’s my day off and the alarm isn’t set). I can’t find the snooze/off buttons, but it finally stops.

7:50 a.m. the phone rings again, and this time I realize it. It’s Kara.
Why is Kara calling me?
Something’s happened. Donna must have fallen or gotten hurt somehow.

I wish.

A nearly hysterical and obviously in shock woman whom I love like my own family informs me that her mom had passed away in her sleep.

No words. I must be dreaming. Kara calling? Donna dying? This can’t be real! Ed just passed 4 months ago almost to the day!

It’s real.

A woman who I once considered my best friend is gone. I feel terrible that I didn’t make more of an effort to stop by and say hi once in a while. In the course of my job, I practically pass right by her house every Thursday and Saturday. But I never stopped by. I didn’t want to make my days longer than they already are. I figured there would be plenty of time to get together.
My heart is breaking right now, but not so much for me. As I said, our friendship had waned a bit in recent years.
No, my heart breaks for Sean and especially Kara for getting a pile of shit dumped in their laps in the span of 4 months. Much like my cousin Jennifer and her mom Maureen, Kara and Donna were best friends. We always joked that Donna never “cut the cord.” This creates a huge void in Kara’s life. For the most part, they have been a part of each other’s day-to-day lives for Kara’s entire life.
Now she is forced to embark on a new chapter in her life (a chapter which included Donna) without her best friend.

I miss Ed. I miss Donna.
I also miss Sean, who moved out to Spokane 4 years ago. And I’m going to miss Kara, who left yesterday.
I am so glad I stopped by and got to see her and give her a big hug before she left. That’s one less regret I’ll have.

And that’s really the whole point of this post.
Don’t put off seeing friends and family if you can avoid it. Stay in touch, see each other, hug each other. Don’t assume there’s plenty of time.

Oh, and by the way, Sharon and I got married less than 16 months ago. It was a very small wedding at our house. Not counting children, there were less than 30 people that attended.
4 of those people are no longer with us. Donna, at only 62, was the oldest of the 4.

Like that old soap opera said every day, “like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

And then there were three

They say tragedy comes in threes. I sure hope that's limited to one set of three. Of course, the preference is that it's limited to zero, but in this case the three has already happened.
Three weeks ago today we lost a good husband, father, friend in Ed Cook.
Three days later it was my dear cousin Jennifer Kolax (Nichols).
Today we're saying goodbye to one of Sharon's oldest and closest friends of nearly 50 years, Diane Lounsbery, who passed away on Saturday. She was 55.
All three died of some form of cancer.
In case I haven't said it enough already, fuck cancer.

A dark week

And here it is, the inevitable and unfortunate follow-up to Tuesday's entry.
My phone rang at 5:45 this morning and I saw it was my cousin. I knew right away what the call was about. My cousin Jennifer had passed away. Admittedly, this wasn't a shock like my friend Ed. As I mentioned the other day, this had been a long battle that took it's toll on her. From talking to my cousins, there seems to be a sense of relief with Jenn's passing that she is no longer suffering.
I can't claim to have been terribly close with Jenn. Like many extended families, we pretty much had a "holidays and special occasions" relationship. Nevertheless, I loved her dearly, and she always made me feel loved by always greeting me with a big smile and hug and seeming so happy to see me.
Having such an infrequent relationship, plus the fact that when the families did get together I tended to understandably socialize more with her brothers, I sadly don't have a surplus of memories with Jenn. But I did know her well enough to know that she was a super sweet girl with a huge heart, and everyone that became a part of her life loved her.
I wish I could somehow share and ease the pain that her immediate family is going through. Having no siblings or kids, I can't even pretend to know what her parents or brothers are feeling right now. I can only imagine that it's a magnified version of the emptiness I felt when I lost my mom, but it's not the same. Jenn was only 46.
And then there's Jenn's own family; her husband Ben (who just lost his wife on his birthday, by the way), and their two beautiful daughters, Sophie and Julia. I can't even fathom their emotion right now. I've heard that kids process and deal with death better than adults do. I don't know if that's true, but I hope it is. Ben and his girls are going to need each other's strength more than ever now.
The one thing I know about the family is that they have always been emotionally strong, so I am confident that they will get through this (as they have been already during Jenn's struggle). It just saddens me that they even have to. 😢

A dark day

This has been a terrible week.
I have been terribly saddened and my heart has been breaking this past week for family members, and dear friends that I consider family.
First, I received word about a week ago that my young cousin Jennifer, who has been battling breast cancer for 6 years, was brought into hospice care. We knew it was inevitable, but it is a reality that we hoped we'd never face. While she is my cousin and I love her dearly, I can only imagine what her immediate family is going through. A husband, two young girls, two older brothers, a dad, and a mom with whom her relationship has always been as tight as a mother/daughter relationship could possibly be. She has been by Jenn's side more often than not during this long battle. Now she has to say goodbye to her baby. How can any parent be expected to do that?
As if that news wasn't bad enough, three days later I found out that my friend Ed Cook had two strokes. After a series of tests it turned out that he had end stage cancer. Within days he was put in hospice care and he passed away very early Tuesday morning. He would have turned 62 this Saturday. I still can't believe how fast that happened. I can't believe he's gone. I'm really gonna miss the big lug. He was a big softy with a gruff exterior (think real life Ralph Kramden). He loved to act curmudgeonly around his family, but anyone that knew him knew that it was a facade. I spent a lot of years being very close to the Cook family, to the point where I did and still do consider them family. He used to always say that one day he was just going to disappear where no one would find him. For the twenty years I knew him he was saying that. He wasn't going anywhere. His family needed him, and he needed them. He loved Donna, his wife of 38 years, and while he might form a look of mock-disgust on his face to anyone who made that claim, he never denied it. I always said they were made for each other.
He used to jokingly say that he hated kids (usually when they were being annoying and loud), but there was no hiding that he truly loved his. On Father's Day on facebook he would post pictures of his kids as his "pride and joy" and the reason he celebrates the day.
He and his daughter Kara tended to lock horns, mainly because she is, as Donna would say, "picked right out of his ass," but I know from conversations we've had that he loved her and was proud of the woman she has become.
He had a good relationship with his son Sean. From my perspective, Sean idolized his father, and from little league, to drumming, to bowling, to learning to cook, to growing into a responsible man and then becoming a father, Ed was indeed extremely proud of Sean.
Then Olivia, his granddaughter, came along, and it was over, Johnny. The curmudgeon that was going to go out for the proverbial pack of cigarettes, the guy who "hates" kids, all gone. His profile picture, his background picture...all about Olivia. I saw him several months ago in Shop Rite of Rockaway (last time I saw him, in fact), and he was all about Olivia, and how he was looking forward to moving out to Spokane and having his family all together again. I'm actually kind of glad that the last time I saw him he had a positive outlook on life. Though in a way it makes this turn of events all the more sad.
He always lived up to his last name. That is to say that he was a damn good cook (and he'd be the first to tell you that). I'll always think of him when I make chili, which he inspired me to learn to do.
He was a good cook and a good Cook. I really am going to miss him. It truly is a dark day.
Rest in peace, my friend.

To all my family and friends involved in these two sorrowful events, I am so sorry you all have to go through this. My heart is breaking and my thoughts and love go out to all of you.