My Brother
/My brother was killed while riding his bike home on Wednesday, October 17, 2012. You can read the news paper articles and news stories here:
We have started a memorial fund for his son Robert. The information is in the Everett Herald article. Also you can contact me if you'd like to just send him a check... this smart, precocious 12 year old already has his own savings account.
I hurt so much right now. He was the only person in this world who knew what it felt like to go through what we went through growing up. I am sad. This is how I remember him:
Us. Us two. In his room. Watching Monday Night Raw. Fake wrestling with his Randy the Macho Man Savage "doll." Him teaching me how to play all kinds of video games. Our favorites were super mario brothers and donkey kong. N64 provided us with hours of escape. Escape from wondering why our parents wouldn't or couldn't have us. Escape from the pain. The palpable pain of rejection. He was my best friend growing up. He knew me and my pain better than anyone else. He was the source of so much of my heartbreak too. Watching him falter when trying so hard to succeed. Never able to get past the pain. I will miss him. I will love him. Always.
My friend Nandish shared this wonderful poem with me that was written after the Virginia Tech Shootings. It really has given me a ton of comfort.
Nikki Giovanni’s Chant-Poem … We are sad today and we will be sad for quite a while … we are Not moving on We are embracing our mourning …
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly We are brave enough to bend to cry And sad enough to know we must laugh again …
We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized NO one deserves a tragedy …
We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be We are alive to the imagination and the possibilities
We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears Through all this sadness. …
