My cousin was in a car accident tonight. He ruptured his spleen and pancreas, among other internal injuries. They life-flighted him to the hospital and gave him many transfusions, but they couldn't save him. He was 36.
We haven't been close since we became teenagers - our family isn't a close-knit one - but he was a good guy with a good heart.
I'll be out of town until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.
First, thanks to those of you who responded for your kind words. I do appreciate it.
This was a fucking nightmare, for so many reasons. I'm not going to go into too much detail, suffice to say that everything that occurred between 6 AM Saturday Morning, and 6 PM today seemed to go as painfully as possible.
TWO 600-mile trips by car with three ppl in four days, one of whom is my mother.
Shortcuts that weren't.
Getting nailed by Ohio police using aerial surveillance for doing 87 MPH in a 65 MPH zone (I wasn't driving, fortunately 🙂 ).
Trying to get my mother(who ALSO was not driving) to SHUT THE HELL UP while the cop wrote the ticket.
Time spent with relations that only served to illustrate all the reasons why we never get together except for funerals.
OK, I said I wouldn't go into detail. I didn't say half the crap that happened, or even the worst of it. Yes, really.
Of course, the absolute worst part was seeing my cousin in the box, but of course that's what we were going up for. The rest was just piling on.
My cousin and I spent a lot of time together as kids, being cousins, and boys. . . so of course they had to have a picture of him as a boy sitting up in the raised lid of the coffin. It brings to mind something I said in another thread: Yet another part of my childhood passes.
I just saw this thread, so belated sorries are in order John!
I realized something as well when I got older... It seems everyone's family has pretty much the same issues. So believe me when I tell you, we all understand!
Yup - we did the same this year too Doc, 2500 + miles in our minivan 2 adults - 1, 20 year old - 3 dogs Idaho to New Hampshire in 3 days we buried my Mother stayed 2 days and turned around and drove 3 days back.
All at the height of the worst gas prices we had this year. - memories. Mostly me and my wife bickering over speed limits, when to stop, where to stop, which f-ing way West was....... though we never had a run in with Johnny law we did miss two tornadoes by mere minutes
Anyway - glad your back in one piece, glad you did not take the speeding hit, sorry for your loss mate.
Duck wrote:Anyway - glad your back in one piece, glad you did not take the speeding hit, sorry for your loss mate.
Yes its good to know that u r back here in one piece.
Seems to be everywhere in our western culture pretty much the same procedure. Additionally to the loss there comes the family issue, the travel, the absence of work whereas in those moments we all would be better off gathering to say good bye to the one we lost and do it in memory to his/her spirit, like he/her would have wanted us to, showing our respect that way.