No Way to Start a Week

When I was thinking last night what my planned blog title would be for the week I thought I would post about the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships starting soon and my experience attending my first Nationals as a spectator. But, alas that will have to be moved to next week.

One always hates to receive a dreaded phone call late at night. A 1:00a.m. call can only mean bad news and of course my first thought was my husband is on the road and something had happened. Awakened from a sound sleep and eyes not focused, my groggy hello was not prepared for what I was to hear.

"Your brother is gone". Gone? My first thought was a car accident. My youngest brother who would be 44 this June and we were really the only one's who communicated with each other over the past 19 years. Although the last couple years were filled with missed calls and other issues that kept us apart, he was not the one out of my five half siblings who I would have thought would not live a long life. Our life disfunctions have been many, he was the youngest and once told me he thought he had learned from everyone's mistakes. He never married, never had kids (jokingly he said that he knew about) but he lived with demons like everyone else. He loved commercial fishing and said life on the boats made him happy. Although he was born in Missouri, he had moved to North Carolina many years ago and had acquired that Carolina drawl.

David and I spent some time with him several years ago and one thing about him I remember was his dark brown eyes and his wonderful smile. He had his flaws like we all have but his compassion and warmth no matter what wrongs he had in his life always seemed to overcome everything else in his life.

I have my regrets and probably always will that our lives together were not filled with more happier moments but I at this time I must believe that all things happen for a reason, good or bad and what little time we did spend together was all that God would allow for us.