O brother, where art thou?

Seven years. Seven years ago today the whole world shattered. He left us.

I can still hear my sister scream. I can still see my mother sobbing hysterically. I can still feel my heart being ripped through my chest and devoured by the cruel form of death.

I guess maybe I should start a little further back than this. Give some idea of the life he lived so that his loss could be a little better understood.

Christopher Michael Peake was born July 15th, 1972. Named after Christopher Robin of Winny the Pooh fame, he seemed to be a rebel from the very start. Technically my half brother, he was the child of my mother and her first husband, and from what I understand, his father's near identical clone.

As we grew up, Chris became my biggest tormentor and biggest protector. He would chase me through the house or playground and mercilessly noogie me or sit on me until I couldn't breathe. But god help anyone else not in the family who tried to do the same.

As I hit my teenaged years we had a bit more in common. It was Chris who taught me how to cruise the circuit in a car, hanging out with friends on a summer night. It was in the back of his truck, speeding down old back roads that I recall my best summer nights with crazy friends.

But our fights got worse. Neither of us felt we appreciated the other. Both of us thought the other got the better deal. The boy who resented his parent's split became the bitter man who felt he was on the outside looking in. No matter what we tried, this would be something we could never mend.

He would call, late at night in his life over the road as a trucker and talk about everything under the sun to stay awake. I think we connected the most on those calls, and later, when I'd go on trips with him. My most favorite memory of these later years was sitting on a flatbed trailer after getting these huge presses tarped, eating bologna sandwiches. He side hugged me and said he was proud. I wished I'd known his clock was already ticking down to the end.

He'd spill things about his life that I probably never should have known about, and shared that he felt no one really ever cared about him. And would usually end it with "The good die young, so I'll live forever".

On July 25th, 2003, just ten days after his 31st birthday, he was gone. He had been in a trucking accident three days earlier and when they went to send him home a pulmonary embolism which had formed in his deeply fractured ankle stopped his heart.

If he thought he had no friends he was sorely mistaken. Half of my hometown grieved for him, the other half scratched their heads in disbelief that someone they knew could be gone. His funeral was held in a small town by the name of Perry. For those three days of visitation and funeral, his mourners doubled the population.

I can still see friends emerging from the double door room, in tears and sobbing wildly, or else stone faced and drained of color. I can hear a thousand "I'm sorry"s in my ear, that caused me to feel sick for many years after every time I heard those two words.

I remember sitting in the house, blown away by how life could change in a heartbeat, and how empty everything could be. People poured in, people poured out and my mind slipped away for a while.

Seven years on you would think perhaps it's gotten easier. The wound still bleeds. I'm getting married next year and he will not be there. My wedding photos won't show him and his smirk. What would he be doing today? Where would he be now?



I miss his laugh.
I miss him singing along to country songs.
I miss him every time I hear an airhorn.
I miss his calling me "kiddo"
I miss his warped philosophies on life.
I miss his tears when he would call.
I miss his bitching at me for not taking my possessions seriously enough.
I miss him picking on me.
I miss him saying he's proud of me.
I miss him, I miss him, I miss him.

Sometimes I wish by saying it enough I could be granted one chance to tell him I love him, that I'm sorry our last words were in anger, and that I have learned so much from his passing.

I know where he is. He's in my head, while I replay memories. He's in my heart, stitched together as best I could. He's with me, and with you, if you knew him and loved him. He is the connection between us all now, making sure that no matter how far from home we sail, we'll always stay in touch if only to keep his eternal flame burning in our hearts.

I wish he was here. Plain and simple. I can still taste the Southern Comfort and feel the cold surface of the coffin as I kissed him goodbye one final time.