Daddy, I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. I heard you when you told me that it would be ok if I left. I knew it was going to be the last time I saw you. It was so hard to leave you. I was so tired. My blood sugar was jumping up and down. I just really needed to go home and sleep in my own bed. I had to protect the baby. There was nothing I could do for you, but she needed her mommy to be healthy so that she could be born.
Dad she is so much like you. You would have gotten a kick out of her. Everyone says so. I know you watch over her though. I felt you with her that time when I didn’t think I could take another bad thing to happen. I know you made her start cooing for no apparent reason. Did you give her one of Papa’s famous footrubs?
V misses you so much sometimes. She was so young and her memories are starting to fade. I know she knows how much Papa loved her though. She always smiles when she thinks about you. Whenever she sees a picture of you she is sure to tell her little sis who you were and how sorry she is that the little one didn’t get to meet you.
Dad, sometimes I watch shows on TV just because I think you would have liked to watch it. It lets me feel close to you for a few minutes. I miss you.
Well Mikey, (my dear sweet older brother) I know you know I miss you. We all miss you. Dad cries often. Mom never cries. I don’t imagine that surprises you. The memory of you that I like most was when you Mar & Joan came to visit me in Cleveland. We got on the Towpath and you wanted to take a side trail. The hill was so steep that all of us lard asses had to walk our bikes up the hill. On the way back down the hill you were behind me, saying things like,“ride your brakes”, “don’t worry, take your time, I’m right behind you.” I was thirty six then and there you were, before the cancer, still being the best big brother a girl could ever have.
It’s only been one year since you died. I still think about you every day. I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to see you the week prior to your death. I was crushed when I actually got to see you that week in the hospital. Every time I had talked to you on the phone, you said you were fine. You said you were going to go back to work any day. In your typical fashion, you didn’t want anyone to worry, so you made it sound like you were doing great. The ravages of cancer had taken their toll. Thirty-Nine is too young to die. You made me a better person just by knowing you. I still think about you every day. I’ll never have another friend like you. I miss you, Mike
grandma,
dad has told me many things about you, if I were only a little older I’d have been able to remember more. The memories I do have will never be forgotten in fact my earliest memory is of “visiting grandma’s house”, running in and jumping up on your lap. Relatives have all told me that I was your favorite grandson, and that I held a very special place in your heart. A couple years passed, dad got transffered. We always came to see you every chance we had. Then one saturday morning mom woke me up as she was packing my luggage, she told me we were going to come visit, I was excitied, then I noticed my mom was crying. Thats when I knew something was wrong, she then explained to me that you had gotten really sick. I didn’t know what to expect when I got to the hospital. Dad and I sat in the lounge as Uncle Bob told as the latest doctors report. He said the doctors didn’t expect you to last much longer. I hadn’t every know anyone to die. When it was my turn to see you, I just saw the computers, monitors, and tubes. I was in disbelief. I stood, one step inside the door untill you started writting on the pad and motioned me to come over. I couldn’t tell what you had written, and you weren’t able to talk because of the tubes. I just climbed up on your bed and gave you a hug then I looked over and saw my dad water eyes release one little tear that ran down his cheeck thats when I started to cry. I told you I loved you before I left, but it still fells like it wasn’t enough.
love you grandma
It’s been just over a year now. That Saturday afternoon when I returned your mom’s message and Ron answered the phone I knew something was very wrong. Greg, Ron was crying, sobbing rather. You know Ron the guy from the old school, men are big and strong and tough and they never, ever cry. When your mom told me I hit the floor. It was like my whole body was violated by those words that she could barely make herself say “Greg killed himself last night.”
I was screaming “NO” as I went down. I couldn’t accept that you were gone. This man that I had known from a skinny little 9 year old to a crazy party loving teenager. To the guy who cracked his head open on the screen door when we got into a fight. You were so mad and stomped away and threw the screen door open right into your face. I remember driving to the hospital with you and sitting in the emergency room with you while they stitched you up. You still had the scar 10 years later. I remember we had joked one time how it was something to remember me by.
When I tried to tell Brandon you had died I couldn’t finish Steve had to tell him. Oh God, just thinking about this the pain comes back so fresh, like it was yesterday.
I had just seen you at Brandon’s birthday party in December and you seemed to be doing so well. You had a good job that you liked and things seemed to be going so much better for you than they had been. You and Steve talked about the plans you had to do more improvements on your house. Every thing seemed so good for you and I was glad to see you making your dreams come true. I would have never imagined that in less than 4 months time you could have ended up so shattered.
I can’t imagine how alone you felt that night. To try and fathom the depths of the pain and isolation you were feeling makes my heart hurt. Just knowing that you hurt so badly and felt there was no one you could go to and no other way to feel better is so painful to contemplate. I wish I could have been there to put my arms around you and somehow imparted to you how important you were and how loved you were by so many.
I loved you, you were my friend, we share a child who is the light of my life. I wish that somehow I could have conveyed these things to you before you were gone.
I want to promise you that Steve and I will not let Brandon forget you. I want to assure you that Steve loves Brandon with all of his being and will do his very best to raise our son to be a man that you would glow with pride to see.
I was going through some papers in my file when I stumbled across a hard copy of this thread, one of my all-time favorites in MPSIMS…thought I would bump this back up on behalf of all the newbies who haven’t yet seen it and for those others who may wish to post their thoughts now.
David, i only knew you as Kevin’s brother. i regret not knowing you better now, but i do remember your smile and the way you’d listen to me when others wouldn’t. you were the only one who put up with my childish prattle, and i envied KT for having such a wonderful brother. your funeral was six years ago, and i still haven’t stopped missing you. i wish you hadn’t died.
(would type more but my eyes are tearing up. damned dust)
I woke up on that Wednsday to mom saying that something terrible had happened. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. I followed her to the living room where my brother already was. Mom then told us that our Cousin Kelly had died in a car crash. We went to the airport and mom flew up to Maine to be there for her sister. All the way back I kept think that it wasn’t fair. Why Kelly? What did she ever do?
I miss you. I just wish I could have been there on the 21[sub]st[/sub] and seen your last day with us. I hope you’re being treated well wherever you are. I’ll visit you whenever we’re in Maine. I still can’t believe that you’re gone. Why you? Why you?
