Today

Today, I miss my cousin.

We came, we cried, we ate

Last week was a tough one -

Saturday started with one of my favorite breakfasts: biscuits and gravy. I can make a pretty mean biscuit - light, flaky, buttery. I can cook sausage with the best of them.

I make terrible gravy.

I know it doesn't seem that hard. Cook the sausage. Make the roux. Add the milk. Stir and cook. Enjoy the deliciousness. Except when I try to make gravy, there is far less deliciousness and far more squirrel food. Luckily for me, I was with my grandma, and she makes amazing gravy. My arteries are so pleased.

I graduated Saturday afternoon (you may call me Dr. Q now), then we headed back home to prepare for the funeral.

We had a cousins' slumber party one night. We met at my aunt and uncle's. L. and I attempted to make cheese dip. (I was unaware that it was a recipe requiring timing worthy of MacGyver. It was easier, however, than the subsequent scraping of the cheese off the microwave. Velveeta is sticky.) We then proceeded to eat an entire tray of apples and caramel in about thirty minutes. Stayed up late, watching movies, talking, getting pictures together for the memorial service. It was bittersweet.

E. and D. came over too (S.'s little brothers, our youngest cousins). D. fell asleep in my lap holding pup. Unluckily for him, someone had been feeding pup table scraps. She had some seriously smelly GI issues. He shouldn't have hugged her that hard, that's all I'm saying.

We took the boys flyfishing, saw my little brother get commissioned (Congratulations Second Lieutenant), said our last good-byes to S., and sent L. off to prom. It was a wonderful terrible week.

Seth

I have seen more than the average person's share of death. I think it is fair; not everyone can handle death on a near daily basis. Some deaths hit you harder than others though.

My cousin Seth passed away today. He was barely twenty years old, just back from a tour of duty in Iraq. He was tall and thin, sarcastic, fun, and trying hard to get his life back on track. He loved his family. He was a hard worker. He loved the military. He was a good kid, a good man.

I remember when he first got back from basic training. He was going to be a gunner, so he had taken extra shooting courses. The family gathered up at Christmas, and we were shooting clays in the back field. He missed all but two of them. We teased him that it was easier to hit targets with cannons. He took it good-naturedly, like he always did.

He will be missed.