As I continue to read all of these letters, it never fails to stop me cold when I read when Mickey writes “for the rest of our lives” or “forever.”  When you are young and in love, the future is an endless path that has no finish line.  Time is limitless and plentiful. 

It’s funny, though, because even when I was growing up, I was always aware that someone could be snatched away from you, just like that. Nothing was promised; terrible things happen all the time. I knew that my father died from when I was a very early age. (I remember a time being really sad in second grade about it. I knew at seven years old what I was missing in my family.) 

When my mom remarried my stepfather, I was still in diapers.  As I got older, I always knew he was my stepfather. My brother and I never called him Dad.  It was never even up for discussion. It was just a set of facts. We had one father who died and then we had a stepfather. Despite never being called Dad, he did love us like a dad. And because of him, my brother and I got three more siblings who have filled our lives with exponentially more love.

In my immediate family, we’ve lost SEVEN people. These weren’t all expected deaths, either.  By expected, I mean, not shocking – like someone who’s already lived a good life, where the numbness of the loss does in fact wear off. And one day you remember how to smile.  

My close friends know I’ve also interpreted these deaths to be part of a family curse. See, all of the first husbands have passed, and in the case of my mom and my grandma, the second husbands too.  I thought for sure that I would be a widow LONG before I would ever get divorced. I anticipated it. Not in a morbid “planning my husband’s demise” way.  Just that it happened so frequently in our family, that the idea of it wasn’t unfathomable. 

Mickey wrote about death in a letter here:

This blog isn’t a lament about my poor family and what we suffered. This is really about how you can make it through a horrible tragedy and come out on the other side.  Again and again and again.