From Grandpa K, 9/30/2014

It’s a quiet evening here, not too far away from the place you were born. Today we would have celebrated your 23rd birthday with you, and I find myself wondering what life would look like for you. What would you be doing? What passions of life would you be pursuing? What adventures of life might surround you?

Perhaps by now you would have fallen madly in love with a beautiful young woman – maybe even married and maybe even with a child that we would have welcomed as our first great-grandson! Who knows! I assume you would have graduated from college last spring, and I wonder if you might have decided to settle in as a potential partner in JTV. Or perhaps your passion for music might have encouraged you to pursue some graduate studies at some renowned university.

That’s the thing about imagining what you might be doing in life as you celebrated your 23rd birthday. We can imagine how crazy wonderful it would be to have you walk in the door with that crazy grin that always seemed to light up the room. We can fill our minds with imaginations for hours on end, and each imagination seems to recall one memory or another.

Every so often I set aside some time to watch the videos your mother took of you and Evan when you were just kids. I have watched the video of you eagerly waiting for the school bus on your first day of school. I have watched you racing your dog to a tree and back. I have watched you celebrate your 6th birthday, opening birthday presents and enjoying every moment. I have watched the ways you saw yourself as Evan’s big brother. And then I have watched the short videos you created and made.

These short videos are wonderful moments that help me keep you close to my heart and thoughts. But as wonderful as these moments are, they are also filled with an aching sadness. We miss you!