Michael

Today would have been Michael's birthday.  I have now found out that Michael died in his sleep, an apparent heart attack. I will remember that he died peacefully, dreaming a good dream is what I pray.  Now his cremations are on his way to Montana from South Carolina.  After I see his ashes and the realization that he is really gone, he will continue his journey to Texas to my last living brother to spread his ashes on the beach where we lived and played so many years ago.  A long journey, a needed one.  I have come to believe after Jim's journey, that the last journey is the most important one.

I write to remember, a surprise birth he was to my parents who were already reaching middle age.  I was 12, my older brother was a senior in high school, soon to enlist in the army and fight in Vietnam.  My oldest brother was in college.  A blessing to my parents at this stage in their life. 

I remember my usual grumpy Father was giddy at Michael's birth.  We went together to a flower shop and bought flowers for my Mother.  I had never known my Father to ever do that.  Another son, to bring life back to ease the struggles in his life. 

Michael was a brilliant child, achieving a scholarship to college, becoming an engineer, traveling to Europe for a job and living there, visiting every country he could.  He never married, not wanting a woman to tell him what to do.  So he traveled, and finally return to the states to settle on a beach in South Carolina, never wanting to be far from the beach or the ocean.

And so to fulfill the promise to my Mother, I will take care of him to this end, making sure his final journey is the right one for him and for me.