March 2011

When an acquaintance, even a new one, relates to me a moment with their brother I grab a hold. When I hear a story about a brother, I instantly become the best audience this storyteller could ever imagine having. Please reveal a happenstance that allows me to imagine you.

I miss you brother, our times and more than anything those which should have occurred.

My promise: this year, beginning with 3/2011, I will make moments that carry on your essence. As time accumulates, your stamp on life will be revived and celebrated instead of the alternative...I will not let what you stood for fade away.

The cruel reality of your fate will never rest easy in me...at times, most of the time, I cannot find peace without having you here.

It saddens me to watch my children fight. While their not old enough to cherish it yet, in time they will understand that a brother's bond is one of life's greatest strengths.

I love you Kieron.

"Life"

Thoughts that wouldn't otherwise derive permeate my mind tonight.

Reason being, life has taken a dimented twist over the last five years, particularily in the last year and especially tonight, the one year mark - to this very hour - of Kieron's death.

Tonight the word life is at my mind's forefront. It needs a new meaning, an altogether different name. Because until recently a large part of life was Kieron. That's over now, and it's not easy redefining it.

Thoughtful ones might suggest Kieron's death, and death itself, is part of life. They're right...it's hard to argue, unless you knew Kieron. If you knew Kieron there's a retort, a natural rebuttal: Kieron was life. At least the one I knew.

His senseless passing convolutes its entire meaning.

In this circle the life I understand lacks luster. He was so full of it and it so full of him that its mere mention sounds foreign.

Life less Kieron must be renamed. Now as it stands, a great deal of its significance left.

1/1/11

KIERON!
KIERON!
KIERON!

I was such a believer in you! Your outlook continues to mold me.

2010 and Kieron Finnegan

Saturday, Jan 8th 2011 - 5 days away.

3/17/10; summertime 2010; fall and football 2010, holiday season 2010...2010 and all of its precious milestones differed.

The list of reasons that make death (especially a young, inexplicable one) unfair is neverending. What saddens me of late is one's legacy, or memorialization. As time passes since one's last day, he/she is discussed less and less...and so the memory tends to fade.

Maybe, hopefully I'm wrong, and the reason we talk less about Kieron since 1/13/2010 is because the sting of the loss lessens.

Kieron's legacy is no more championed by me than anyone else that loved him. But I cry out and this my promise: the more time multiplies, bigger becomes the room in my heart and mind for treasuring him.

Kieron Go Bragh, and ever.

808

Tonight I drive, and across the radio words ring Kieron. And he sits in the empty seat next to me, and we're on our way.

Talk about free...no worries... us, a dog, a cooler, a wad of fishing poles, and an obligation to wake up with the sun, to cast a line. And talk.

We were free. I was safe. He made it that way. He'd talk to me, ask questions that'd make me feel important because he'd listen with intent.

And when one of our taut lines yanked, he'd say "there". If it was his 808, I'd watch him as he set the hook, and felt his excitement. He'd reel, rod bowed, while my eyes alternated between his face and dancing line. Talk about free; there's no recollection I cherish more.

I loved Kieron Finnegan. I wonder where could he be, and what happened. He was beautiful. I look up in the bluebird sky, or the black sky, and wonder where he is.

Distance

Ironic it is that alive as I am, I feel closer to Death than I probably should. I go to bed with it every night and it awakens me most mornings. Of course I knew it was tough. Heresay told me as much...but I never knew just how tough b/c we were never formally introduced.

Kieron decided to be the liason on January 13th.

Now it's like an arch enemy. Now, quickly, we're familiar - last Thursday marks the four month anniversary of our acquaintance.

Death makes a God-awful first impression. But the lasting impression is in its follow-up work: Death makes memories wane. For sure, not many mention my brother much these days.

Dear Death: You can't take him from me.

2010 firsts, without

2010 means lots of meaningful days w/o Kieron. The first was his birthday, 3/17/2010. Today was my first birthday ever without my brother...43 years. It was also the baptism of our neice and nephew, Henry Finn and Juliet Guyton...another monumental day unshared by their proud uncle. Tuesday will be my son's 9th birthday, again the first w/o his uncle. As the months turn, more precious dates will endure and pass w/o Kieron. Special days in 2010 remain special but when I awake on these memorable mornings I think of Kieron first, and how much more special they were. Happy Easter bro, I miss the magic your smile made these days more magical. Good heavens how I miss you.