Death in the family

A relative died two weekends ago.  I'm surprised I didn't write about it here, but I guess I'm just not used to writing everything here. She was my cousin.  But cousin is hardly the right word.  For a good part of our childhoods we lived on the same block and her parents were my foster parents for a while.  In a way she was a little sister.   As adults we were close off and on.  She was a real friend to my oldest daughter when my daughter has some of the most difficult teen years.  That means a lot to me. She lived in a western state, far from me in Florida.  Two weeks before her death she went to the ER, wasn't feeling good.  I don't know more than that about why.  But they gave her 4 units of blood, so there must have been something wrong for sure.  I don't know what the followup care was supposed to be, or if she followed instructions.  She didn't have health insurance and got a massive bill from the hostpital. But the weekend of her death her brother was home on leave from Afghanistan and she drove everyone out to dinner.   Later she didn't feel good, but because of the huge bill she'd got before she refused to go back to the ER. Sunday her Mom went to her house and found her daughter dead. I don't know when or to whom, but she stated wishes for no funeral service.  Instead we were asked to plant roses in her honor. Anyhow, we have a great climbing rose that we planted in front of our house years ago.  We went to the nursery today to get one or two to put behind the house by our deck, but were told they're not available this time of the year.  It's too hot.  But we'll do it when we can and remember her when we see the flowers.