The day my brother Joe married his wife Allison, he decided it would be cool to hop on his motorcycle for a couple of professional pics in his tux. So he took off down the street in front of the house where we grew up. Unfortunately he skidded out on some wet leaves and he and the bike took a fall, shredding part of his pant leg and giving him some awful road rash.

My parents and his groomsmen helped clean him up and put him back together in time for the church ceremony. He walked down the aisle and waited for his beautiful, unknowing bride. Not realizing the videographer’s microphones would pick up his whispers on the altar, he quietly explained to Allison that he might need to visit the emergency room at some point that day.

Joe ended up braving through the day, even dancing and having a great time at the reception. But afterward, instead of spending their wedding night at a luxurious hotel, Allison and Joe went to the ER to get his leg stitched and wrapped. And went on to spend much of their Aruba honeymoon in a wheelchair! My brother was always a wild one but with the softest heart. He is so loved and missed by all of us.

You would always say you were our
Wind up clock
In a digital world
XXXX

Kim was my baby sister and younger than me by almost three years. She would get so excited at Christmas that she couldn’t sleep. She still believed in Santa Claus. I used to sing Christmas songs to her and tell her stories to get her to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. It always worked!

When we got older, we sang together a lot. Our favorite Christmas song was Winter Wonderland. I would sing the melody and she the harmony. I can still hear us singing that song in the stillness of the night when I cry silent tears because she is no longer with me.

Giving her a simple gift, and watching her face light up, followed by her happy and excited “thank you.”

In my brother’s night table drawer, I found a book that my mother had bought for us when we went to see ‘How The West Was Won’. We saw this epic MGM Western with our parents when I was nine years old and Johnny was eight. A family saga covering several decades of westward expansion in the 19th Century, the movie ignited our lifelong love for westerns. Originally filmed in three-lens Cinerama, and projected onto enormous curved screens, the film was the grandparent of IMAX, and we were all absolutely amazed.

Johnny and I both thought the score was magic and I remember how we enjoyed Debbie Reynolds singing “A Home in the Meadow.” The song was set to the tune of Greensleeves, our father’s favorite melody, and since I took piano lessons, I kept playing the music for a long time afterwards. Johnny loved hearing it, and the adapted lyrics, too. I try to imagine Johnny in the world beyond this world and I hear the lyrics of the chorus:

Come, come
There’s a wondrous land
For the hopeful heart, for the willing hand

Come, come
There’s a wondrous land
Where I’ll build you a home
In the meadow