And so it goes

Shawn called me this morning and said, "I have bad news." I said, "What?" in an irritated and put out voice because that's the only news we seem to get lately. "Ricky's dead," he says.

Let me give you the rundown because this may be hard to follow.
Shawn's cousin, Robyn, is who we bought the house off of. Her husband, John, is who Shawn works for. Robyn's brother, Ricky, also works (worked *sigh*) for John. Robyn and Ricky's mother's name is Dotti (Shawn's favorite Aunt). Shawn and Robyn's cousin, Renee just had a baby. Her boyfriend, Randy, also worked for John. He recently quit. So Shawn's friend, Mike, was recently hired. John was on vacation Tuesday thru Monday (today). Shawn was running his route. Ricky took over Randy's job as the floater. When the guy's have a week off (each guy gets every sixth week off) Ricky runs their route (minus John because some of the people on John's route dislike (disliked) Ricky). So last week and today, he was running Shawn's route so Shawn could run John's. Well. They were at the warehouse today loading up the trucks. Everybody kept saying, "Where's Ricky?" So they called him. No answer. Mike says, "well his house is kind of near my route. I'll run over to see if he slept in." Mike goes to Ricky's house and finds him dead. :(
Now Robyn, Dotti, Robyn's kids (who worship Uncle Ricky) and Ricky's daughter, Kelly went to New Jersey this weekend to visit Cindy, Robyn and Ricky's sister. They were on their way home today and Dotti's sister (Shawn's aunt), Mare called to tell them the news.
"They" (whoever they is) said Ricky wasn't dead for more than 5 hours. We all figure he was getting ready for work, which would have made it more like 3 hours.

Ricky was somewhere in his mid 40s. Divorced. Partial custody of his daughter. Lived alone. And Ricky was one of my very most favoritests of Shawn's cousins. He was very cool to talk to at the family functions that tend to get loud with people talking over each other (in their shrill head-splitting, ear-bleeding voices). Ricky and I would go outside, smoke and hang out. I am going to miss him.

I am so terrible with words so I don't know what to say to Shawn when I get home.