It Comes in Pairs

While I'm not sure it means anything, a lot of important events in mylife seem to happen in pairs--usually within 24 hours of one another.My mother and her mother's birthday happened on the same day. Myfather's birthday and mine are also on the same day. My father-in-law'sbirthday is a day before my daughters. Within a day of each other, Ialso got mentioned on two differentSlashdot articles within a day of each other. I could go on with manyother examples like this. Needless to say, I tend to see a lot ofevents either related to me or people I care about paired up in my life.

Sowhen my wife told me her grandmother was on her deathbed and her deathwas imminent--note she her health had been deteriorating for the pastcouple of years now, so this wasn't any surprise--it occurred to me atsome point that her death was likely to happen either on ouranniversary or my birthday. I realize that's not a very nice thought,but given the frequency of "paired" events in my life, it seemedlikely. And it appears another pair is forming. As of a few hours ago,it's looking very likely that she will pass within the next 24 hours.

Mywife will likely be focusing her energy on her mom for the next severaldays--something I can completely understand under the circumstances. Myenergy will therefore be focused on our kids. I believe my sonunderstands death, but doesn't have much sense of tact yet, so I have afeeling we will be spending a bit of time explaining to my son how"that's not a very nice thing to say right now," among other things.

Family life will be different for the next few days for sure.