My mother of 92 years died May 3rd this year; in 2005, my brother, younger than I, died; both of them died of lung disease while I sat with them. Today is the first day I could try to listen to the music my brother listened to in his last hospitalization, and I wonder if the grief ever gets easier. It is so sharp today, I feel physically ill with it; another thing it is doing is bringing up other great losses, like my dad, who died of accidental drowning in 1981. Feels like a stone boat on a sea of tears today.