Abandon Ship

My parents have been going on cruises a lot in their golden years.  They have never once planned to go themselves, they just continue to be invited by different groups of friends and relatives.  At this point, they've probably circled the globe by boat.  They've even been to Antarctica.

2011 was a busy year, cruise-wise.  Two weeks after my parents came back from a European cruise, they left for a China cruise.  My brothers were left to watch the house and fend for themselves.  A few days later, my brother called me and said there was a message from the daughter of our next-door neighbour.  She was calling to tell us that her mother had died.  I've known her parents my entire life.  She died the day after my parents left.

One of my brothers and I went to the visitation to represent our family.  A lot of our other neighbours were there.  I'm sorry to say that over the years, I didn't really talk to them very much.  But it was nice to see them, and that they had noticed my car on occasion.  We stayed for a while, talked to the son and daughter (both of whom had moved out of the neighbourhood long before I was born), conveyed our condolences to her husband (who looked really thin and frail, nothing like the round jolly man I had known all my life), and then quietly left.

This past weekend, my parents left for an Australian cruise (stopping in Hong Kong on the way there and back to check on my youngest brother).  My middle brother e-mailed me today to tell me that he got a message from the same daughter, saying that our neighbour had passed away, two days after my parents left.  When he saw the name on the call display, he literally said to himself, "Not again..."

After his wife died, it wasn't possible for him to live on his own so his family moved him to a nursing home, and the house was (presumably) rented to other people.  The obituary said that he passed away peacefully in his sleep.  He was 89.  His wife was 85 when she died.  A long life for both of them.  Sadly, she died just before she was about to be a great-grandmother.  At least he was able to see his great-grandson.

It's an eerie coincidence, and it brings the idea of mortality back to the forefront of my mind.  Maybe my parents shouldn't go on cruises anymore.  We're running out of neighbours.

"Oh save me, save me from tomorrow, I don't want to sail on this ship of fools"