Letter to Mitchell

Dear brother,

Today has dawned, and brought with it another milestone in the lives of the people that love and miss you. Mitch, I can't believe you have been gone so long! Sometimes, it seems like a thousand years; sometimes, it seems just yesterday that I last saw you.

I wonder what your life would have become. Would you have married and had kids? Would you have remained a Battle Skills trainer at Camp Robinson, or would you have eventually moved home? I often wonder what type of advice you would have given during one of my many dramas. You were my brother, my best friend...I could tell you anything, and you never judged me. Thank you so much for your acceptance, love and your crazy sense of humor.

Learning to live without you in my life has taught me many things, but I think the most poignant message of all is to live each day as if it were your last. This whole concept has been heard so many times until it almost seems cliche, but it is the universal message that speaks to all men about the limited amount of time we are given. Things do change in the blink of an eye, and then the moment is forever in the past...so I choose to live without regret or apology. I don't want to waste a second of my time, because a moment from now, it could be all be over.

I have no regrets regarding the time I spent with you, because we loved each other as best we could as siblings. You and I both recognized during my last visit with you, that these moments were special, magical...although we could never understand why. Now, it is all clear to me. That would be the last visit, last conversation, last hug I would ever receive from you. And you know what? It was more than I could have ever asked for.

I watched home videos for hours and hours last night, and had personal visits will all my family who have passed on. Some may think I'm crazy, but just the sound of those familiar voices comforts me. It's the only way I can visit you now, so I'm thankful for the ones who captured so much of our family history on film.

Even though you are not with me, the storehouse of memories you have left behind makes you come alive again. A familiar phrase, or picture helps me recall the happiness you brought to my life. I keep a little box that belonged to you. It used to sit on the chest of drawers just inside your and B's room, and you kept pocket change in it. Now, it contains mementos of the life you once lived...concert ticket stubs, the sunglasses you 'borrowed' from me at our last visit, a chain you wore in highschool, your last pack of cigarettes. Sitting beside my chair is a picture of you. You remain, forever, a part of my life because I choose to keep you alive.

But I still miss you, and the space you left behind will never be filled. My only hope is that I will accurately pass on your memory to others, and remember with a smile, the man that is my brother.