Wednesday, October 28, 2009

SOMETIMES IT'S JUST A HARD DAY

I received news of the passing of a cousin last night. We had met just 7 years ago through a geneology search that was really the result of a chance happening. The search produced a long lost branch of my family. And for the last 7 years the members of this branch have been emailing to me and so many of my family almost daily. My cousin, Craig, hailed from Madison, Wisconsin and proved to be a very funny guy, a wonderful photographer, a very active advocate for the disabled, all the while battling many medical conditions on all fronts.

When Craig's son was to be married in New Hampshire a few years ago, he asked if we would come to the wedding since we lived in Connecticut at the time. We, along with some Massachusetts cousins, jumped at the chance to meet him and his family. What a wonderful time we had, not only meeting him but several members of this "new" branch.

Despite his medical issues, Craig's resilience, indomitable spirit, perseverance, and optimistic outlook resonated with everyone. He always looked at the glass as being half full. No matter how things were going, he always ended his emails with the idea that "life is good and he was still cuddly and studly." His emails were full of interesting information, commentary on all sorts of things, wonderful photographs chronicling his city of Madison (which is beautiful) and generally keeping us all informed about so many things.

In sending my condolences to the group email, I was astonished and saddened to find out that another cousin's wife, had passed away in July. Everyone on the group email list has different groupings and somehow I had not received that email.

And so, the tears are flowing today. Sometimes it's just a hard day.

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