Time with the family

Bit of a backup on my blog writing, but it was for a valid reason.

 Jan 28 was my brother’s birthday.

My little brother was murdered in 2015. He was twenty-eight. 

This is why I originally started this book. I hadn’t been around a lot of death, thank God. I’d only lost one grandmother, and it had been a long drawn out battle. Both of my other grandparents still lived. I’d lost one cat. That’s it. 

Things like this, you know, they happen to other families. Not to us. Right? 

Anyway, what followed was years of long drawn out court cases, a lot of worry, and a family that was lost. We miss him every day. 

I’m not ready to go into it all publicly, but I will say that my family prefers to celebrate his birthday rather than the day he died. I try to ignore that day as much as possible. But we do have traditions.

For instance, he loved bourbon. So everyone tends to have a drink that day, even those who never drink like my parents. My husband and I do a shot of the last gift he gave us. It’s a bottle of white rum from a local brewery that was the last gift he ever gave us. He had bought it before he died, and his widow brought it to us. It’s going bad. Well, it was bad when we first tried it, now, each year, it’s getting worse and worse. If you knew Jimmy, you’d know he’d find that hilarious that we have to force ourselves to drink it. It’s the type of drink that you’d drink anything else in your cabinet before drinking. Like straight butterscotch schnapps. It’s awful.

Then again, I once gave him a shot of “cut grass vodka” so I guess it’s payback.

Well, anyway, it just happened to be a day when my other brother was switching jobs and his daughter was in daycare, so we decided to knock off work and go to a movie. My husband was super sweet and picked up our daughter so I didn’t have to rush back. I went to his house, he gave me a shot of Knob Creek, (Jimmy’s favorite), threw me in the car and we went to the nicest cinema I’ve ever been to. We watched Spiderman. It was absolutely amazing. Didn’t even have to worry about masks, it was only him, me, and the dude who ran the theater. 

I took the weekend “off” after that. (I mean, after all, a wife and mother always has a dozen things to do. I mean more that I wasn’t working on book activities.) We had a nice relaxing weekend, spending as much time as we could outside. I’ve found I often need that for my sanity. Sunshine directly correlates to my happiness. 

I hope you all also had a good few days. Now I’m back to work. Today will be making sure my social media sites are ready to roll. 

<3

-Kat

Miss you every day, little bro.