One of my cousins died on Saturday night, firmly placing my mother into a minor emotional tailspin.

"We're not doing so well, are we?" she asks.

I hardly knew him, and I can't completely remember his face now. I wonder how old his kids are now.

Apparently, he had been recently afflicted with some form of throat cancer. Cancer is certainly popular these days.

She called me Sunday morning to give me the news. "When it rains, it pours...doesn't it?" My mother doesn't handle these things so well.

At some point Saturday night, he went into cardiac arrest and they spent a significant portion of time flipping him between life and death.

Death finally stuck.

Weak hearts run in my family, although the physically frail slightly outnumber the emotionally fragile. Sometimes you get both.

Depending on who you include in the genetic pool, life expectancy for the average male hovers between 50 and 65.

I just turned twenty-five, here's to middle age.