You Should Be Here

Last week my baby brother Brook put a short post on Facebook. I kinda cried.

"For my brother, Jesse..." 

Brook included a link to a song I've heard on the radio before but with car chaos, kids changing stations, reminders, chatter in the car, my mind in a million places, I'd never paid much attention to it.

Until last week.

Sitting at my kitchen counter.

And I cried like a baby for most of the day.

The video opens with a date: July 13. My birthday.

The words: So much like the song was written specifically for Jesse; he'd be cracking jokes, my dad usually says 'We got the whole crew/gang here', him taking pictures, those precious times when the family is lucky enough to be together but it feels like there's 'just one thing'...someone's missing. Then there's life happenings that turn into a 'Jesse Moment' - whenever it snows, an entree at a restaurant, something blue, a car - and I think,"Jesse would love that," so sometimes it feels as if he's never left but on a long trip where we can't see him. Not yet. I'm a music person, and this song is the perfect song for millions missing a loved one who got their angel wings too early. 

He'd have his arm around someone. Man, Jesse gave the ultimate hugs. It's the last touch I had from him: a big, giant hug. That hug is one of those moments in time I go to for a mental Happy Place and it's what I very much look forward to when it's my turn to go Home.

Sometimes a good cry makes me feel the closest to Jesse. But not all the time. Each time I walk by those neatly stacked, all facing forward Bush's baked beans at the grocery store, I smile. Jesse. He gave me a ton one time,"Because they were on sale." And whenever I clean my car...always when I clean my car...because Jesse loved clean cars. Well, he loved everything clean and neat actually.

Or yesterday, when in church someone commented on the insignificance of worldly wealth, and my memory went back to a phone call when Jesse advised,"Tawna, you are rich. You have Ethan and Kiana." That advice changed my perspective and touched my heart then, as it does each time I revisit that conversation.

Then this morning when I had to throw away a bad orange...Stuart looked at me holding it over the trash for several awkwardly-longer-than-normal moments,"It's bad," he prodded. "I know. I was just thinking about how Jesse said a house seems cleaner when it smells like citrus." 

It's those little things every single day that I'm grateful for that remind me of my brother. Those little things are the big things in my life. What matter most.

So, if on July 13 when the video opened, or any day of the week someone asked me what I'd want if I had just one wish, well, it's not hard a hard question. I'll just go on pretending the song came out as a birthday present!

It's one of those moments, that's got your name written all over it.

And you know that if I had just one wish it'd be that you didn't have to miss this

You should be here.