so many others, and of my Patsy. Yes, yet another cousin is passing long before her time, her fight with colon cancer ending after 8 valiant years. As Gerry said, “You didn’t have many cousins to start with…” Fewer now.

Patsy’s a wonderful person, lively and warm and full of love. And funny, funny, funny. We always laugh like fools when we’re together.

We share a grandmother (not a nice one) and that bonded us. My dad’s family weren’t the warmest of folks, but Patsy and I had the good luck to have moms who married into the family, thus injecting some much needed kindness into a sad and often – well – nasty bunch of folks. We are prideful about that – something our moms weren’t. It’s easier to be proud of someone else.