Thoprawishes to uruk, roboto and Tec. Sorry for each of your losses.
That's the one thing I hate about being this age. Turning 40 didn't bother me in the least. I don't really get the idea of midlife crises and whatnot. Maybe it's because I've never really grown up. I don't know. But what I do know is that I was fortunate enough to not encounter much death as a kid. Both of my grandfathers died before I turned 1 and both of my grandmothers died within the last few years. So there was quite a gap there. I remember my mom's best friend's husband died when I was REALLY little, but I didn't understand what it meant. I lost the occasional classmate in school, though the only one that really impacted me was my senior year, when a kid I was friends with growing up died in a car wreck. And then, for the most part, another large gap.
But starting in the mid-30s through now, people I was around the entire time I was growing up keep dying. It seems like about twice a year on average for the last 5-6 years. They're not ALL people I was close to. Some of them are just people who were around a lot when I was a kid, like my aunt's brother who died recently. But you still miss them, even if its just in a, "Hey, you remember Bub? He was always around when we were kids. Such a nice guy. What was his real name? I'm not sure I ever even knew," kind of way. And the screwy part is that most of these people probably didn't even know SLB. It's just old age catching up with them. But still...
I thought I missed them when I just lived 1800 miles away from them and only saw them once a year or so, but then you find out what it means to really miss them. And it really sucks. So I empathize with each of you, and I hope you can find whatever peace there is to be found.