Mortality

I've had two back-to-back reminders that life is fleeting. The usual joke: You start the morning by checking the obituaries and if your name isn't there, it's a good day.
My brother sent an emailed photo of a day lily with the same name as a rock group I sang with in the late 1960's. The name was a coincidence, but in the last couple of years I have exchanged infrequent emails and CD's with the former leader of the band in Maine. I forwarded the photo, but the email was returned. I knew his email was associated with his business; that was a bit worrying, so I Googled his name and located his obituary and a tribute page posted by his brother.
The next morning I had a call from my second cousin, who lives about 40 miles from here. I spent some time as a teen on her family's farm on the Kitsap Peninsula, and had enjoyed staying in contact with her mother, who was an author and amateur historian.
My second cousin had two brothers, both jokers and larger than life characters. I still remember riding in her brother's tiny 'clown car' to a lake near the farm to go swimming, singing along with Herman's Hermits at the top of our lungs.
Later, the older of her two brothers had a business selling Christmas trees in California and used a house I was sharing in Portland as a way station for his north-south trips. Several times, he showed up without notice, arms laden with groceries including steaks and bottles of wine. We cooked him dinner, and he enjoyed our company until leaving early the next morning. I knew about his disastrous engagement to a woman in California that had ended badly, devastating him and leaving him curled up into a ball, resulting in the first of several hospitalizations for depression. I only saw him a few times in the years following, once at a family reunion at the farmhouse. I still have photos of everyone lined up on the back stairs. Now his two sisters, who were estranged, are reconciling as their family has been reduced to two.
About five years ago, his younger brother was found dead of a heart attack at the bottom of the stairs. This death was deja vu all over again.
In spite of it being mid-December, the power was off. He was found crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, and although there was evidence of hard drug usage, his heart was definitely involved.
I have learned recently that several former lovers from my New York days have passed, but at least their music is still with us.
Will I leave a musical legacy? That seems less likely now.
Every day is a gift, as I have just been reminded again.