Dear Brother

In the endless sleepless hours since Friday, I've thought of a lot of things that I should say. But my mind is weak and sad and it seems so inadequate, so inappropriate, so distasteful, to try describe either how I feel or anything at all about Weston in words only. He was not a person for words. He liked them only if they could convey what he meant. I want a cookie. Can we go for a boat ride. He was a man of action at all times. Always running, always playing, always smiling. Smiling was the action we never appreciated until the moment it stopped.

I don't regret one single moment we spent together, even if I was not always the person I could be. We cannot change the past, though for now, we must relive it. I can't spend anymore time with him, or take him out more, or play more games with him, or teach him more things I know. The time for that has passed, but I don't regret any of it. I cherish every memory we shared and keep them close to my heart. I remember every moment of his life, from the beginning. From before the beginning.

I remember taking him home from the hospital and feeling so proud because I could finally sit in the front sit because Chrissy always wanted to sit in the back and fuss with him. I remember his walker, always getting in our way and leaving a little trail of cheerios for us to clean up. I look back on it and say happily. I remember all the things he was so proud of. His pokemon collection. Mowing the lawn by him self. His bicycles. His kitties. We were so proud of him, too, even if we didn't always say so. He knew it though. He was really smart that way. He could tell what we were thinking, even if we said the opposite. Even if we said, it's time to do your schoolwork, he heard, I love you so much Weston, I think. Because that's what we meant.

Everything in our home is him. Every part of us is him too. For all those who sit here today, you were touched by him, even if you don't know it. Even if you never met him, you felt him shine through everything we did. The stories we would constantly tell about him, or just the way he made our lives so perfect, made us all better people. I remember his life like it was my own because we are one and the same. We were never apart in heart and mind and we never will be. Not one moment of my life will pass that I don't think of him with love, or wish that he hadn't gone.

We're not supposed to say how unfair it is. But it is. It's unfair how much I miss him and how I feel like I'll die myself. It's unfair that he never got to kiss a girl or drive a car or walk with me to the beach at midnight. He never had the chance I did. I would give everything for him to have mine. But it's not the kind of present you can give or receive.

I spoke of regret before. And people tell me that there is nothing to regret. My regrets are much deeper than wishing I'd taught him how to roller-skate. My regrets are purely selfish. I regret the dreams I had for him that he never knew. I would fantasize about our future. When I could come home from college, or work for a week and tease him about having a girlfriend. Or laugh about how he was taller than me. When we both had families and we'd have Thanksgiving together, all of us. Everyone in here was probably in this dream at one time or another, eating turkey and sweet potato with us, sharing all the good times from the year and laughing together. I will always cherish the 7 years we spent together, but for now I cannot forget the 60 that were so unjustly taken from us.

The thought I keep closest in mind and heart is that he lived so well. Such a full, happy, wonderful, beautiful life, so full of friends and family and people who loved him. It is my goal to pass and have standing room only, as Weston did. He touched all of you, and you came today because you loved him. He squeezed the most out of every day and made the most of every minute. We couldn't get him in bed until 10 o'clock because he was always playing, doing something that was much better and more important than sleep. He did more in 7 years than most do in a lifetime. We take comfort that we instilled this in him, that every minute of every day counts and to find happiness, joy, and friends wherever you can. He made friends everywhere, with anyone at any time. Think of all he'd done! Think of all the places he'd been, think of all the people he loved and you will know that he took advantage of everything this life has to offer. No one can ask for any more than Weston had. He is love and he was loved. The most loved of anyone I know, and now we will remember him the happy way he was. Who would have it any other way but to remember our happy boy who lived each moment for all it was worth.

I have a hard time sharing memories now, because the memories are the most painful and the most healing parts. They break my heart, but they fill me with love at the same time. They fill me with the happiness that he brought to all our lives like sunshine in this endless rain we're feeling. Keep your memories like snapshots and take them out when you're sad, to comfort you. Look at them when you're happy to remember him. Come over our house sometimes, just to look at pictures, and to go over the snapshots we can't forget.

His scent still lingers. I think that it will never leave completely, because the human mind is a funny thing. It tells our noses that we can smell him, when he's gone. It tells us we can see and hear him when he's gone. So forever will his voice ring through our house, asking for cookies and his footsteps clop through the living room to get a toy. Forever will I see him sitting on the couch as I wake up.

The only words that exist between Weston and I are forever and never. I will never see him again, but I will love him forever.

My comforts are few, but I cherish them as I do my memories, because they will be what will sustain all of us through this time. Before Friday I thought that something like this would kill us all. It breaks our hearts and kills us for a while, but Weston wouldn't want us to be sad. He hated it when I was sad. It helps to think that he never knew true sadness. Perhaps it was better this way, that he never had a broken heart, he never felt guilty or lonely or unhappy for one moment of his life. His heart was full of love for everyone and everything, as we must now fill our hearts with love for him, and each other, because now we are all we have. Oftentimes, families will put only the happy pictures up at services. We did, but these are the truest representation of Weston, a child who never frowned, ever. Even when I scolded him. Even when he fell down and scraped his knee. Not an unhappy word or glance or gesture to anyone. Always the one who wanted to play and smile and run. We should all do our best to think that way. It's hard to say what he would have wanted, but I know that he would want us to be happy. And I know that he would want us all to act like people he liked to be around. Happy people. People who like to smile and play and run.

Take comfort that he never suffered, not in life, not in death, and never in our hearts.

We must all take comfort in each other. None of you need my eulogy to know that. Services and cemeteries are for the living. This is for him through us. Because we are all he has in the world now. So through our hearts he lives and knows that the world carries on and remembers him each day as he rests.

Rest in peace my brother. You are everything to me. I will never let a moment pass without thinking of you. I never love anyone the way I loved you. I will live and I will love, but you are mine forever, and I am yours until the end of time.

Anne Pierson