In Memorium

My brother Peter would've been 59 today. He died in 1994. He was coming home from his lady's place and fell asleep at the wheel, and got smacked by an oncoming vehicle. I still miss him a great deal. I remember one day, roughly 30 years ago, I was complaining about something trivial, and he said, "I don't like you very much anymore." I was so shocked to hear that I had to inquire why, and he told me that I was bitching too much. Although I felt my complaint was justified at the time, I realized that negativity wasn't a good thing, and a constant barrage of complaints could only drive people away. For that comment alone, I am forever in his debt. But there was so much more: Peter and I spent a lot of time together; tossing a football; pitching and hitting baseballs; there was so much we did together. It's too bad he sold the drum kit he bought, because he would've been a great drummer. That's something I blame myself for, because I should've let him know. I was playing a lot of guitar then, but my mind was not in a good place. I found it hard to open up to people, even my own brother, which is why I always appreciated it when anyone opened up to me. When Peter told me what he did, I had to rethink my approach to life, because I couldn't stand the thought of losing him in my life. I remember the last day I saw him, Chopin's 'Minute Waltz' was playing on one of my mix tapes, and he talked about how he could play it, moving his fingers through the air so fast he probably could've played it in 45 seconds. A few days later, I got a call from my sister Clare, who never called me unless it about a marriage or a burial. My heart sank when she told me Peter was dead. It hurt me when I was told that the father died, but my father had been sick for months with pancreatic cancer, so the announcement of his death was almost a relief, for my father would no longer have to suffer. But when my younger brother died, in the prime of his life, it hit me real hard. It still hurts not to have him on this Earth with me, since he was the closest to me of all my siblings. After that day, I was farther away from my family than ever. When my mother died, I really didn't belong to that family anymore, though I still love them all. George, the youngest, has helped me through my plight lately, as well as Kathleen, my younger sister, but I am lost without Peter. If I hadn't been lost to begin with, could I have saved him somehow? Probably not, because that thinking is the kind of contortion that makes physicists think there are multiple universes, with everyone living out multiple fates in countless different worlds. I must say there is only this world, beautiful but scarred, and I find it much darker without my brother Peter.