We had two deaths in the extended family in the last couple of weeks.
First was my mother’s cousin Irving Wolfe, on Jan 31. I have a lot about his 90th birthday party, almost six years ago, on this site somewhere, before it was a blog.
Arlene and I visited Irv and Evelyn once after that party, in the late winter two years ago, I think. Irv was tapping maple trees on their property to make syrup, and showed us a big bird feeder he had recently made, all at the age of 93 (if it was really two, not three, years ago). Irv and Evelyn had moved from their house in Skyview Acres to a retirement community in New Jersey about a week before he died. He got up on Saturday the 24th, had breakfast, and sometime in the morning started shaking. He went to the ER, was in intensive care the next day, and was in hospice on Wednesday. For the good stuff about him, please visit that second link “somewhere”.
The second was Arlene’s sister’s mother-in-law, or if you prefer, Arlene’s brother-in-law’s mother Natalie. She had had heart surgery several weeks ago and never recovered from the complications. Natalie was in her early 80’s. She had been very active until recently, and had booked a cruise in Alaska for next summer. Family from as far as Portland OR had been with her for the last couple of weeks, since it had been evident that she wasn’t going to make it.
That’s Natalie’s husband Yechiel, Natalie, the then-brand new great grandson Jared, Rachael, and grandson David, just about five years ago.