My cousin Dina passed away of a brain aneurysm in Italy today. She was my best friend when I was 4 or 5 and she was in her teens. Almost like a 2nd mom in how close we were. Such great memories.

My family left a couple years later . so we lost touch for a long time, but went to visit her in the early 2004 for the first time we met as adults and it was magical.

She'd wanted to reconnect recently, but distracted by work, school, life events and I kept putting it off. A huge loss too soon..