Christmas Eve crash kills man

Mom's cousin, Bernie, died yesterday. Death of a relative is not an unusual event, except in this case. Bernie is only the second relative I remember that did not die of old age and/or disease. I wonder what the odds are... of one's family members dying of disease/old age vs trauma? Guess it would depend on the size of the family (ours is small), and the relative riskiness of the family members pursuits.

It's weird how things go. We (Mom, Dad, me, sis) are all at my sister's house for Christmas and we got a Christmas card from Bernie yesterday (Christmas Eve). He told us about his current gig, driving a mail truck over mountains in Wyoming. He included a couple of phone numbers, which Mom promptly called to leave a wacky Merry Christmas message. I think Bernie was already dead when she dialed.

I wonder if anyone was around to hear the phone ring when Mom called? Wonder if Bernie was still at the scene... wonder if the medics heard it and tried to find it. Or did he leave the phone at home?

We always comment on that in the emergency department after someone has died. We are busy cleaning up the patient and the phone goes off. Some days you want to answer it. Other days you don't. Mostly we just let it ring. It's a wonder we weren't tempted to do really rotten things. We did use them to find numbers for the families. Or friends. Calling the operator to find out where an area code is located. It's always so hard, long distance.

Georgine is the only other person in the family that I can recall dying in a crash. But that was back in 1968 or so. Not bad I suppose. May it be another 39 years before someone dies a traumatic death in our little family.

It's been a long time since our holidays were saddened by a death. I know we are not the only ones and I wish for everyone only good memories of the one gone.