Three letters in three days

This afternoon I received an email from Mike C., an old friend of mine from my GNCorp working days.  (I haven’t talked with him since my mom passed, in 2004.)  He wanted to let me know a mutual friend of ours, Charles had passed this week.  I haven’t seen Charles since 2010, and the last I spoke to him was the week before Christmas in 2016 when I was living those 6 months in Waynesburg & feeling homesick for Pittsburgh, and was reaching out to old friends in the city.  I’m really glad now I did.

Charles was a big, lumbering man with a shock of black hair, a moustache that he kept too trimmed (it looked suspiciously Hitlerish and we used to let him know it) and a constant frown.  But when he laughed, it was sudden and LOUD, his lips would stretch far back and he’d squeeze his eyes shut like he was in pain for doing it.  He was the most paranoid person I knew, and you couldn’t help but love him.  He was a year older than me, married & divorced in his early thirties and was formerly a veterinarian—but gave it up and became a computer programmer, because he couldn’t detach himself from the worry & heartbreak of working with sick animals.  He was as kindhearted as he was opinionated.  He was 58 and now he’s gone.

Yesterday, on Friday, my sister Shawn sent our sister Donda & myself a blank email.  The subject line simply read “Rodney has passed.”   Our cousin Marcy’s husband, Rodney succumbed to a stroke the week prior and took a devastating fall.  He did not last long.  He was 58 years old.

And the day prior to that, Diana (a former classmate of mine), wrote to let me know a mutual classmate had passed, Mark K.  He was loved by many, and while I didn’t know him personally, remember him very well.  He was the quietest student in our class.  I saw him laugh on occasion, but I don’t recall him ever speaking.   He too was 58 years old.

There’s no connection between these 3 men (other than my knowing them), but I can’t help but wonder the odds of receiving 3 emails in 3 days of 3 men passing, each 58 years old.  Y’know, I sit here sometimes and contemplate my own future, and ask myself things like “Is this TMJ ever going to go away”  and “Is my retirement portfolio going to last me long enough”  and “Am I ever going to get off my butt and do something worthwhile?”  all while assuming I’ll be here for a couple more decades at least.  

And I realize now, well today I do, I should be so lucky.