i am the walrus.

I come from a fairly large Irish brood on my mother's side and my birth marked the start of the second round of cousins, with the first having come from those born to the children my GrammyMc had before her husband went off to cover WWII for a local newspaper. The cousins who came before me gave me stuffed animals as presents and I still have some of them, named for the giver -- including a bear named for cousin B and a walrus named for cousin R.

On Wednesday, cousin R was found dead by his only child in that child's parked car. He'd been homeless on and off for a while, and he was an alcoholic. He'd been in and out of treatment and he just didn't make it -- he probably died from a combination of too much alcohol and being in a car on that awful hot day.

I remember a time before the booze swallowed him up. He was a good person.

It breaks my heart to think of his child.