Learning from loss

As I sit down to write, my 15 year old cousin is laying on an operating table at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia while surgeons attempt to harvest his usable organs. From what I've heard, part of his liver is going to an 11-month-old baby.

I like to think that Daniel would smile knowing that in death he is helping save other people's lives. He was a good kid who grew up in an environment that was tough and unfair; for the sake of my aunt in her time of loss I'll refrain from commenting further or passing judgment on a situation that I was too far removed from to truly understand.

This hurts though. Seeing him in that bed, so young and so strong and so full of potential...I don't think I'll ever really get over that. Not that I should either. How fair is it that my father, who has done everything to throw his life away over the past five decades, manages to pull through his life-and-death situation, only to revert to his same selfish, disgusting, "who can I blame for my problems today?" ways; while Daniel, feeling trapped in a life that was never fair to him, makes a mistake that he can't recover from?

Of course, everyone's living with tons of regret in the aftermath. I'm worried about my aunt and my cousin-daniel's sister. I feel bad for not playing a bigger role in his life. I wish he would have called me.

I've learned from this though, and I won't make the same mistake with Aaron. On the night Daniel was being flown to CHOP, Aaron and I were in Philadelphia; I took him to his first concert (Avenged Sevenfold @ the Electric Factory) as a reward for his awesome report card. I'm pretty sure he had a great time; I know I did. He's a good kid too, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he doesn't make the same mistake that Daniel did. When you're fifteen every little curveball that life throws at you feels like the end of the world; it's my responsibility as Aaron's big brother to teach him how to hit those pitches out of the park too, or at least foul them off...

On Thanksgiving I had a lot to think about, and among the many wonderful blessings that I have in my life, I should probably be most thankful that my mother was strong enough to make sure that we didn't make the same kind of mistakes that Daniel did. Believe me, I thought about it more than once. Mom is far from perfect, as we all are, but she gave us the tools to overcome our lives and the dark cloud of our father, and we're all doing okay. If I can have that kind of influence on Aaron, whose mother isn't even 1% of the woman that my mother is, then he'll have a fighting chance.

We miss you Daniel. You'll always be the good kid whose footprints on our hearts will never fade.

-Joey