What a Couple of Weeks ....

There was some good, some great and some really bad. Don't have time to post about all of it right now but there are some things I want to get out.

Yesterday marks the one year anniversary of my cousin Stacey's death. I can't believe it's been that long already. That also means the one year anniversary of my Uncle Ken's death is this week. One day last week I was looking ahead on the calendar to see what birthdays and such were coming up in March. As I was doing so I thought about Ken and Stacey and the fact that I had almost made it an entire year since anything really crappy happened. Should have knocked on wood because not more than four hours later I got the phone call. We had another death in the family ... another suicide actually. Seriously people .... suicide is not the way to go. Whatever hell you may be dealing with I promise you that you will put your family and all the people that loved you through so much more. Your problems do not die with you. They are still here for others to deal with. Just sayin' ...

John Parker while not technically my uncle because he and my aunt never married, was still an uncle figure for as long as I can remember. From what I remember being told, he put himself through law school by driving a taxi in the city. Whenever we would go up to CT to visit and wanted to go into the city (NYC) he would get us wherever we wanted to go and in a hurry too. You know those movies where the taxi driver is trying to get somewhere in NYC and they drive on the sidewalks? Yep. The last time he drove us into the city to go see the Statue of Liberty I remember feeling like I was on a ride at Disney or something. I always really liked John. We always had good talks and he was always there if any of us needed legal advice. I can remember like it was yesterday standing in my Aunt Audrey's kitchen before Stacey's funeral and talking with John about life and our new business and the kids, etc. It never occurred to me for even a second that I might never see him again. And Good Lord already!!! Honestly ... my Aunt Audrey is the strongest person I know if she can make it through all this and still manage to get dressed and leave the house. After losing two kids and now John ... although they were no longer together, they were still close and he was there for her to deal with all the things that went along with Stacey's death. He dealt with a lot of things for her so she didn't have to. He also spoke at Stacey's funeral and I thought he did great given the circumstances. Well ... enough about that for now I suppose.

I was going to share some of the good of the past couple weeks but now it doesn't seem like a good thing to mix it with this post. Stay tuned for happy stuff later on ...