The Year of Death Continues

I have lost more friends and acquaintances in the last 12 months than in the last 10+ years. (And, increasingly, there is no notice/obituary or service.) The latest one came today, in a death notice published in the paper 3 days early. Our family has always been tight with another family that lived across the street from my grandfather. My first job was babysitting for the oldest son. When the youngest son decided he wanted to have his own contracting business, we gave him his first job. He continued to handle our yard and handy work up until about 5 years ago, when he decided he'd had enough of working for himself and took a regular job. He died suddenly and alone 11 days ago, and wasn't found for a couple days. The middle brother has decided that, despite the few family and friends still in the area, he's having a memorial Saturday, darn it. And the notice popped up in today's paper, though it wasn't supposed to until Wednesday. So fortunately we found out about it, and I'm trying to rearrange the Shore Leave deck chairs to go to it. But this is getting ridiculous, losing so many people in so short a time. Stop it.