Tomorrow

 I am front and center in blue and my brother is far right in black.

Yes, that picture is from the 80's, but it's the only one I've scanned of my brother.  Tomorrow would have been his 48th birthday.  Seems crazy to me, that my brother would be that old.  He died, you see, 13 years ago.

No, I'm not over it, but I've made progress towards healing in the past year.  The fact that I am able to write this post is proof of my progress.  I cannot even utter his name without crying.  So bear with me and yet another tribute type post as I try to honor his memory in a positive way.

Speaking of uttering his name....his name was Bennie, but I always called him Bayne - my private nickname for him.  It started out as Banus (a combo of Bennie and anus because he was a PIA) and then it morphed into Bayne.  So whenever I see a comment from Bayne, my heart skips a beat.

Anyway, he was 4 years older than me and from the time I was about 7 years old I was his fiercest protector.  He just seemed like he needed it.  He was always in trouble, in school and otherwise.  In hindsight I'm pretty sure he had something like ADHD but that sort of thing wasn't diagnosed at the time.

I'd do his homework for him and he'd do anything for me.  That's just how we were.  And later on as he got older he'd blow most of his money on partying which always bothered me.  I was quite the saver when I was young.  So after he came home from a night at the disco (yes, I am old) I'd scan his room for remaining money, scoff it and save it for him.  Over and over.  He never even missed it.  Till one day I told him he had almost $1,000 saved up.  He couldn't frigging believe it.  He knew I'd been socking away "some" money for him but didn't have a clue as to how much.

Later on, well I always made sure he had a job but learned that people have to do for themselves.  There were some things that I just couldn't fix.  Like his marriage.  His relationship with his ex-wife....his depression.

I'm lucky enough to have people in this world that love me, but I will tell you this.  He loved me beyond compare.  In his eyes I could do no wrong, and baby I've done plenty of wrong.  His nickname for me?  Mother Theresa.

He was found with pictures of his children...and me - a bad picture of me from an old camping trip that I thought I'd thrown away.

Happy Birthday Bayne...

Josie