There's been some sad things going on in my extended family. All of them involve cousins that I'm not close to but its just weird to me how sometimes reality is so different from what you think it is. How what looks like a normal family, isn't so. I don't know...maybe I'm just being naive about what's normal these days. Maybe these problems are what families are dealing with. Take for example my cousin, who has a daughter in her twenties that got hooked on meth from a shady ex-bf, got pregnant and had a baby with another addict bf, and has now disappeared forcing my cousin to adopt his grandaughter. Man, I remember that girl when she was a child and her and her sisters all seemed like such sweet kids. True, I haven't seen them in years but they seemed happy last I was with them.

Then there's my Cali cousin who recently had to get a restraining order against her husband cause he was in denial of his recently diagnosed bi-polar condition. Guess they had admitted him to some psychiatric facility but he's claiming there's nothing wrong with him. So he's staying with his mother while they try and work it out.

And Mum called this evening to tell me my 24yo cousin just got killed in a car crash early this morning. Another cousin I wasn't too close to but remember as a toddler running around the family holiday parties.

So is this the norm? Are families really dealing with such tragedy and sadness and sorrow on a daily basis? I mean, its not like these are under priviledged families. These are middle and upper middle class families.

These things baffle my mind...