Beyond words..

It's about 7 am, 10/31/07.

Yesterday, we lost my little brother, John. We got the call that he had been rushed to the ER by ambulance around 5:15, and then about a 1/2 hour later we got the call that he was gone.

If I hadn't had seen him, touched his hand, wept over him, I still don't think I'd be able to believe his passing. It's surreal. A 20 year old young man, a better writer and artist than most could ever hope to be, gone?

I like to think of myself as a decent writer, but I've found at the most crucial moments in my life I am going to what's already written. I don't know why that is. I woke up with lyrics from the musical RENT in my head.


525,600 minutes,
525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets,
in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes

How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?

Measure in love
Seasons of love.
Seasons of love

525,600
525,000
Journeys to plan.

525,600 minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!


That's, of course, inadequate. But the sentiment stays. My love for my little brother has had many seasons, the first of which started before he was born.

He made me a big sister. What a gift! Though there are many times where I know that I filled that role poorly, he loved me anyway.

Family can be an interesting and honest mirror. You look into your loved ones and see elements of your own character, some that you feel proud to call your own and others which you'd just as soon forget.

John! His writing, his art, his amazingly generous and forgiving love of others. I hope that I am reflected there.