"Systemic Lupus Erythematosis"........Systemic----throughout the body........Lupus.......??..........Erythametosis.....reddening of (the skin) My cousin, a wonderful girl born about the same time as my sister, to my Mother's younger brother Frank, became interested in Nursing, perhaps due to precognition of health issues she may have had, but those being masked from the family, at least my part of it. Elaine had a sister, Rose Marie, a bit older. Elaine I remember as being on the chubby side, 10, 12 years my senior, likeable, almost always smiling, and I learned later in life my older nephew, Dan, born when I was 5, had a high school "crush" on Elaine, also his cousin, which may have progressed further beyond the boyish interest phase (this, not being relevant, came from my younger nephew, Mike, many years after the fact). Elaine became a respected R.N. Significant achievement on my Mother's side of the family, where my Mother's 3 brothers were: one, her elder, a lifelong drunkard, another, younger than she, a troublemaker within the family all his life, and the third, her kid brother born while my Mother was dating my Father, out of wedlock, the kid's father fleeing back to Czechoslovakia upon learning of my Grandma's pregnancy. Such was the state of familial dysfunction about the time of my birth. Elaine was likely born in about 1930; I was born in 1942. She was always the epitome of happiness in my recollection. I was already married when she married a boor of a husband, my wife & I attending their reception, Elaine's husband being stoic, just "there", likely wanting to be somewhere else. They had a child, a boy. As time went by, Dan, my nephew interested in his cousin Elaine romantically (heresay), joined the Marine Corps., during which time Elaine sickened from the effects of Lupus. Separated by distance rather than time, I had my own difficulties to resolve, a murder-suicide the monumental one, so was rather insulated from the family's difficulties. I learned from my Mother that Elaine had died, at 32, of Lupus. That wonderful, cheerful girl molded in my memory as a child, always smiling, happy, dead. Her husband and child, "Frankie", I have never heard another word about, over the passing 50+ years. Thus, goes, the not "close" family, separated emotionally because of meaningless little prejudices and unsubstantiated innuendoes. (I purportedly "stole" money from my Mother), I moved to Las Vegas and reaped an enormous gambling fortune, excluding my close family from partaking (these are the arguments put forth years later). Elaine was dead. My young wife's mother and father were dead. My wife's younger brother was dead. My own Father was dead. Everyone who mattered to me in my life, almost, was dead. I could go on. Many, dead, at early age. Elaine, 32. My cousin, Roy, 28. MiL, 38, FiL 42. BiL, 25. Uncanny. The "Grim Reaper" seems to delight in keeping us "in the dark". NEXT? We dunno. As far as my own existence is concerned, I won't worry about it. But WILL hope my own demise follows Kenny Roger's dictum: "THE BEST YOU CAN HOPE FOR, IS TO DIE IN YOUR SLEEP." From: "The Gambler".