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All of the previous generation of my family, including my parents is gone.  Some uncles and aunts lived close by and we visited frequently.   I can picture all of them and imagine them talking or laughing.  My paternal grandparents lived to the south in the middle of the Willamette Valley and for a while ran a restaurant in a big house with ten acres of fields behind.  It was a fun place to visit.  My father’s mother attempted to teach me piano, but I was a dropout.  She said a lot of things which were odd – Her family could be traced back to Noah; Charles Atlas, who sold weightlifting courses in comic books loved her, and that her dog Pudgy (named after the dog in Betty Boop?) could sing “The Isle of Capri”.  She was a memorable woman.  My father died at the same age I am now.  We didn’t have a lot in common: he was hunting and fishing guy, I was more of an academic.  My mother was frequently sad.  She smoked from her teens until she died at ninety-four.  I think she could have made it to one hundred except for that bad habit. 

Two former good buddies from grade school are dead.  One died riding his motorcycle years ago, the other more recently.  We had drifted apart shortly after grade school.  One of my two best friends in high school died shortly after our 50^th reunion.

For many years no one close to me died.  Celebrity deaths have not particularly troubled me.  I do remember hearing about John Kennedy’s death while in college.  Elvis Presley’s and Mickey Mantle’s death disturbed me because they abused their talents and their health.

In the past year or so, my ex-brother-in-law, wife of a cousin, and a nephew died.  Wally, a friend going back to high school, Mike, a newer friend who seemed to be in good health, and Arnie, who shared a Detroit background with my wife Sharon all died in the last few months.   Those losses hurt, but my sister Alex dying in March, and our cat Kitzhaber in April really got to me.  As an older sister Alex taught me a lot, including the alphabet.  For some reason I can recall that she described the letter v as an upside down roof.  We hung out during my first years until it was uncool to hang out with a younger brother.  Kitzhaber liked my wife better, but after a few rocky years, we got along.  I even got to rub his stomach when he was in the mood.  For several months we had a bedtime routine – he would head bump my fist before he got his kibble treat.  We bonded over our health problems – both of us had a thyroid disorder and a heart murmur.  Before we were to take him to be euthanized at the end of his life, I made the mistake of picking him up.  He died immediately.  We think he was the last in a long line of cats we have loved.

The only person I ever camped with who is in Wikipedia (for math excellence) died a few months ago.  I tried to track down Gary’s widow to offer condolences, but failed.  While I was doing that, I also tried to find a close friend from grade school that I hadn’t seen since those early years.  I was encouraged when I found an address for him.  Peter’s widow got back to me and told me he had died three years ago of Covid.

A cousin a year older than I am has an inoperable brain tumor.

I still think of the people who are gone, and sometimes when my memories slip I expect to see Kitzhaber greet me at the door.

I’m three years past the average lifespan of the American male.  Whose memories will I haunt?

Appears in Pure Slush Lifespan Death. Based on people and cats I have known.