Hardest day of my life...
Today was by far the hardest day of my life. I had to say my final goodbye to my brother. Up until today, I had always thought that saying goodbye to my mother was going to be the hardest thing i'd ever have to do. Again that was til today. My mother was sick. She had been for almost 6 years before she passed away. When she did, it seemed like it was actually her time. She wasn't stuck to the couch anymore. She wasn't attached to an oxygen tank anymore. She wasn't suffering from all her pain anymore and in a sense, it was comforting to see that she was finally "free". Joey was 25 years old. 25 and full of life. If you asked anyone that knew him, it would be hard to get any of them to say a bad thing about him. You couldn't. As far as I know, he never hurt anyone. He may have broken a few hearts in his life (haven't we all), but I can't honestly think of one bad thing he ever did to anyone. Saying goodbye to him today was the hardest thing I've ever done. Fighting a war was nothing compared to this. Being dead broke with no place to go was nothing. Losing everything I had ever worked for seems so small. EVERYTHING bad that's ever happened to me seems small in comparison to saying goodbye to my brother. I grew up with him. He was my best friend. We had our fights. We've punched each other. We've kicked each other. We've gotten in so much trouble together. Soooooo much trouble together. Yet, we've had some great times together. Some of the best times of my life. When we were kids, we didn't have everything, but we sure as hell made the most of what we had and then some. I have so many memories....great ones. I'm not going into detail but I'm just going to write a few that really hit me. The lawnmower. The hill behind our old house. The tree house. Fishing. The pre christmas lacrosse game. BB guns. The 50. Under the bridge. Colorado. Just stuff we did. Those are the things I'm going to remember about my brother. The things that are going to keep me going. I'm going to come back to this after a little time.