A million years ago…well, maybe not a million, but definitely before I was born the Thanksgiving dinner happened.  Family lore holds (and I’ve been told this by many members of our family) that they were having Thanksgiving dinner when my great-aunt’s mother had a heart attack and died at the table.  On the one hand, I’m really glad I wasn’t born yet, because that would’ve been a horrible experience, and yet it would’ve certainly help when people are all, “Oh, that didn’t really happen,” and I could be all, “Yeah, it did.  I WAS there!” instead of, “Well, that’s what everyone says happened.”  I share this delightful bit of family history with you all, because it helps explain a very bad joke I made the other day.

When my uncle passed away on New Year’s Eve, I joked that I wondered who was going to die on the next holiday.  Y’know, since Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve  had already been claimed.  It was a joke!  Absolutely no seriousness intended.  It was me dealing badly with emotions, because I’d much rather laugh than cry.

When I got home from work last night (1/2), I came home, and mom seemed a little off.  We talked about how my day at work had gone, and then she held out her hand to me.  Sensitive cretin that I am, I just said, “What?”  I figured she was just trying to show love to me in light of us dealing with our uncle’s death.  Instead, she said, “Aunt Faye passed away yesterday.”

Oh.

On New Year’s Day.

To top it off, she told me that our cousin (Aunt Faye is my great-aunt) doesn’t expect Aunt Faye’s husband to make it past February.  So, I guess Valentine’s Day has been claimed?  (Sorry, so, so, sorry, that was super tactless).

Sometimes I feel like soap opera writers take notes for their plots from our family.  When things happen, it’s always the extreme version of things.  We’ve had a long lost relative reestablish contact with the family after 40 years of silence.  We’ve had a woman have a baby that doctors before and long after claimed was an impossibility.  A kamikaze pilot went down in the backyard of a relative during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and she lived to tell the tale.  And now, we apparently die on holidays.

I’m thinking it’s good an evil twin hasn’t shown up yet, but definitely not ruling out the possibility.