It may be a strange thought but sometimes it seems to me that people's deaths are connected in beneficial ways that we don't necessarily recognize.

For instance, my brother, as his lymphoma came ever closer to taking him, was worried about what his wife would do after he was gone. She was too young for medicare and she had a bad back and wasn't able to work fulltime; their savings were long gone. Then her mother died and his wife found herself literally a millionaire (she knew her mother had money from a chain of florist and landscape shops but she had no idea of how much); her financial worries were over. Her mother died in July, my brother died in September.

Dana Reeve was the stalwart advocate for and main support of her husband for many years. Had she died before he did, he would have not only been bereft but his whole life and care would have changed.

Their children, sad as their loss is, have been given a better grounding than most children in the world ever do.