I was born into a huge Irish family, so it was always clear this week was going to come.? With 37 kids on my dad’s side of the family, and a lot of us clumped together (I was never in a school without a bunch of cousins, and never in a grade without one or two or 5 somewhere around me), I knew that sometime far in the future, there would be funerals of cousins to attend.
In 1986, my brother died of a roaring, fast moving cancer.? He was the first of the Garry cousins to leave the planet.? He was out of time, though, dying at 33, not leaving in the normal course of events.
There were no more cousin deaths until 3 years ago, when cousin Mickey, in her 70s, died after surgery.
Then last Tuesday, first born of all the cousins, Betty, Sr. Rose Elizabeth, a Sister of Charity, passed.? While we were at her funeral at Mount St. Joseph on Monday, another cousin, Ann Lorraine, in a nursing home in Urbana, decided it was time to go and leave the pain behind.? Her funeral will be Friday.
It is time, all is well, grief is tempered with peace.