Thoughts on Death

My grandparents had seven grandchildren: one from their older son, three from their older daughter, and three from their younger daughter. (Their second son never married.) One cousin lived in California; the rest of us grew up together, more brothers and sisters than cousins. There were six years before I joined my older cousin in the family, then came the California cousin two years later, and then there was a flurry — two cousins born in 1956 and two more in 1957. The youngest cousin, David, died today at the age of 63. He started to decline when he was 57. He had dementia. He also had Downs Syndrome.