(no subject)

[whitereflection]

A bit ago, just as I was about to head out the door to pick up some of Bebop's IV supplies from the vet (because I didn't remember the twice one of us was there yesterday of course), got a call from Dad. Word's come through the family grapevine that my uncle Ed just died. He wasn't sick, he wasn't old--just a couple years older than my dad, that's just barely at/over sixty. Don't even really know details, Dad hadn't gotten very much info himself, but that it involved his leg going weak and a fall. But no clue if it was something like a stroke, or if just a weird fall that caused a traumatic injury or what.

Just can't quite grasp it, you know? I wouldn't say I was close, but I've always been close to my Dad's side of the family, and he was always in the background (especially so after he left my aunt and took off with my other aunt's partner of twenty years). And it's hard to comprehend someone that's always been there, even if in the background, not being there anymore, especially when there was no thought that they'd be gone now. Not like my one aunt with cancer, or my other aunt who just seems to be fading as she ages.

Kinda leaves a wierd feeling though, because I'd been pondering my Dad this morning, and how I'm not ready for him to be aging, not ready to be thinking of him in terms of mortality. Just had been talking with Mom yesterday, and she mentioned he's been really feeling it lately, the whole body hurting all the time thing, all the things from when he was young coming back to hit him hard (Vietnam, and nearly dying there, missing things inside because of it, years of substance abuse, car accidents, fights, and so on an on. Hell, probably even the later years of gym workouts, weightwork, jogging, marathons, and stuff that allegedly is good for you but still wears you down).

I really feel for my cousins, because I know I always think that *I'm* not ready for it, and now it's happened to them, whether they're ready for it or not. And I feel for them because I feel in a way that life's in general treated them worse than it has me--but then again, they (esp Stace) have some really good things, too, so maybe that's just how life goes.

And what is it, I think again, like I keep thinking over these past years, what is it about this side of my family? My uncle Mike when I was a kid, my grandfather when I was just out of college, my grandmother a couple years back, now my other uncle--and still the fact that my other two aunts, it could be so soon. And then the thought that with Dad, it could be years sooner than I would expect/hope. Yet my Mom's side of the family? Not that I wish harm or ill on any of them, in fact there are some I really do care for--yet all of them are still there. Every cousin, aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather (who frankly, I do wish weren't still around). Except, ok, one uncle from when I was in gradeschool. But I just wonder, why is it like that? I shouldn't be favoring one more than the other, but I do--and it just rubs me as unfair, that the side of the family that I do value more, have always felt closer to, is the side I always watch fall one by one.

Anyway.