Tillamook Bay, Oregon, August 2016
November, 2015:
My brother in law Jeff, sixty years old. Three thousand miles away. Melanoma with sudden unexpected complications. The closest in-law relationship I had, he was like a brother to me. Survived by my sister and their two adult children.
May, 2016:
My mother in law Dee, eighty-one years old. Congestive heart failure, COPD. She lived with us. She passed with us by her side. Widowed long ago, she left four children, twelve grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. My own mother having passed a while ago, she the only mother I had left. She got out before she would suffer a loss that would surely have killed her, even if she were healthy.
August, 2016:
My brother Chuck, sixty-nine years old. Cancer. My only sibling who didn’t live on the east coast. He left his wife, two kids, a grandson and his seven siblings behind. I loved my big brother and he loved me, even when I was a snot nosed kid with grubby mitts breaking his stuff.
September, 2016:
Our son Brian, thirty-three years old. Thirty-three years old. No warning. Undiagnosed dilated cardiomyopathy. A thousand miles away. Dee’s most beloved grandchild. He left behind an estranged wife and his six year old son who adored his daddy as much as his daddy adored him. He also left behind his brother and sister, and his mother who fell into a deep hole of grief such that she has yet to hit bottom and the light above, long ago faded from her sight. He left his father. He also left me, his step-father. That I can claim to have been a part of his life is an undeserved honor.
November, 2016:
My country (and all the good things it represented and all the hopes that we would continue to move forward), two hundred-forty years old.
Almost all hope of saving the environment, older than human kind.
The assumption that 2017 would have to be better than 2016, an idea that started about a year ago, grew stronger and stronger with each loss and abruptly ended on November 8.
December, 2016:
With ten days left, there’s still a chance that my list will grow longer. Oh hell, it is longer, much longer and it is growing. A complete list would be impossibly long and even more depressing than it already is.
I welcome everyone to please add your things lost.
