If I could choose a super power it would be something cool - like flying.  I would choose to fly... over traffic... to the front of a long line... or to a vacation spot.  Of course, I wouldn't fly in front of a speeding bullet for you (or anyone) that would require yet a second super power.

 Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick out my super power.  There was no catalog or late-night purchase from QVC.  That must be how I wound up with a power to identify death.  I'm like the cat in the old folk's home that picks out the next person to die.  It happened again, yesterday. But first, let me explain.

 My first adult job was as a tour guide at Schwinn Bicycles.  I had access to every nook and cranny in every one of the four factories that made the bike parts and put the bike together.  There one one corner where a single person, a cool, old guy, put together the high-end Paramount customized bikes.  I visited with him on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  We laughed and giggled until we coughed and spit.  On that Monday I found out that he died over the weekend, after our fun visit.

I rode my bike to the lake one day.  About a mile from home I heard my name called out.  Looking up, I saw my uncle waving from the front porch of his new house.  I hadn't realized that he moved and had unknowingly ridden my bike right in front of his house. I pulled over and spent a wonder (final) visit with him.  We laughed and he reminded me of Dean Martin as he told me stories of his father the fruit peddler, and of growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.  He was dead in a week, diagnosed with leukemia, but dead from pneumonia.

When my grandfather died, a cousin refused to believe that I wasn't called to come to his hospital bed.  She insisted that she should have been called.  She couldn't believe that I would leave work in the middle of the day and go to the hospital just as our grandfather's heart stopped beating.  In fact, that's exactly what I did.

Yesterday another cousin died.  It was expected.  She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier in the year and had gotten weaker in the last few weeks.  At 10:30 yesterday morning, I considered going to visit her. I decided to put off the visit until later in the afternoon so I could leave for school after the visit.  I walked into the house and was met by the immediate family.  I asked if I could see her and was told that she died at 10:30 that morning so the funeral home had already picked her up.  I hadn't known that she was dead until that moment.  Imagine if I had followed my initial instict and arrived at 10:30?