Today Is the 6th Anniversary of My Brother’s Passing

Today is the sixth anniversary of the passing of my little brother. Leukemia took him on a Monday evening.

Every year I debate if I should talk or blog about him and I end up doing it because that's what he would want. He would also want to know how your relationship with God is.

John was a Christian who didn't drink or smoke and just worked hard.

Losing someone you love sucks no matter the conditions. But, at least with John, he was looking forward to getting to heaven and seeing his dad. It gave him and I time to say all the things you want to say to each other before one of you is gone. For that part, I'm thankful.

I'm also thankful for his wife, Schelli, who is an amazing woman. She has worked hard to keep my family included in her family. She remarried another gentleman a few years ago and they have one daughter together as well as raising John's daughter. The guy she married knows that every time we get together, we're going to talk about John. Not every guy could handle that. Welcome to the family, Brian.

Something else positive that came out of it was the random people who would stop me in the grocery stores and tell me their cancer stories. Cancer touches far more people than you think.

Schelli wrote about the journey all the way until the end of John's life. Many people who were following the story would stop by either the hospital and later hospice, to offer comfort and shake my brother's hand for how he was handling everything that was going on.

So, today, I'll call my mom and we will tell a couple of stories about the "last child."

Then I'll toast him with a Coke and a long drive. He'd like that.