Happy Birthday Jerry!

Today would have been my brother in-law's 43rd birthday.

Last July he was killed in a motorcycle accident. We truly miss him and this day is not passing without our remembrance of him.

I asked my husband (pictured on the left) to share a little of his memories of his brother (pictured on the right).

"I guess appropriate for his birth date would be the tradition we started about twenty years ago. We were born a year and three days a part. I was born February 11^th and Jerry a year later on February 14^th. Of course he was born on St. Valentines Day and it sure fit him well for he always had a lot of girl friends-- some men would think this a blessing (I once did!), even Jerry did for many years, but time changes things and he would tell me later that it was really a curse-- and he meant that!

I remember when Jerry was very young, we had to have been in grade school, maybe 2^nd or 3^rd grade, and Jerry missed the bus home. I really didn’t pay attention until I got off the bus at home and he didn’t follow me. I went in and told either my dad or mom, I can’t remember. Well they about freaked, which is a normal reaction. Just what would it be like today?? Anyway, it turns out that he liked this girl and he decided to walk her home! That type of decision making really never changed most of Jerry’s life!!

But twenty years or so ago he started what we turned into a tradition every year. I think I was about 23 or 24 years old. He called me up on my birthday to wish me a happy day but he began by calling me an old man and going on and on about how my physical appearance was going down hill because of my age, etc… I was a bit miffed at first, for I thought he was serious. But he then changed to his familiar jovial voice that many of us are familiar with and I then knew it was a joke! You see, for three days I was TWO years older than he was!! We really got a great laugh out of that… so surprisingly for him, three days later, I gave him a call. I told him he was losing his curls (he had the curls for the girls we would say) and his age was really showing. I told him he was gaining on me and would every year the rest of his life! From that time on, this was something that we did every year. No matter where we were, we would make the calls to each other. It turned into something that we actually looked forward to and expected. We would then talk for a good while. This was one way we showed our love toward each other. I will miss that very, very, very much as I miss him very much. It is a hard feeling to describe when you lose someone you love. The emptiness never goes away and actually I am glad that it doesn’t for maybe if it would go away, I would forget… and I never want to forget my brother Jerry."