Getting Older

I saw an old man on television years ago.  He was about 95 and the interviewer wanted to know what he attributed to his long life.  He answered the usual I ate this or that, but he added something more.  He said if you want to get as old as me, you've got to get used to the fact that everyone you know is gone.  Your family, your friends, all long dead.  
And so it goes.
Over the last year I'm getting a taste of it.  My husband passed.  Then a cousin that was like a brother to me.  These loses were great, but lately I've noticed a large number of celebrities are also dying.  These are the people who defined my generation.  Yesterday it  was Nora Ephron.  Today, it's Don Grady.  He's the older brother(also middle) on that old series My Three Sons.  I had a super crush on him back in the day.  Thought he was cuter than David Cassidy.  Well, today I read that he'd passed away, and I thought, how can that be.  In my mind he's still that young cute guy.  He's still listening to the sage advice of his father.  And he's still living in that white house in some ficticious town I'll never see.  He's not alone and it's not just people.  Do  you realize there are only four soap operas left on television and that they're in serious danger of cancellation?  Do you realize how many people are passing away, people who defined the baby boomer generation.  Let's see, Michael Jackson, three of the Bee Gees, Donna Summers, Teena Marie, Davy Jones, the list goes on.
I feel like I'm watching the end of an age.   I feel like I'm going to wake up one day and find that most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention disco.  It's strange.
My father is 84.  He likes to talk about the good old days.  The other day he admitted that few people even know who or what he's talking about.  "Everyone my age is gone," he said.  And I thought how strange that must feel and here I am going in the same direction.
 Years ago the people who died were much older than me or they were people who'd died tragically young.  Most of the time, they were a part of my father's generation, maybe even my grandparent's generation.  But now, they're the ones I grew up with.  They're the ones I read about in teen magazines.  It's a sobering thought.