Over the past couple of days there have been a lot of developments that came to light as to who Henry was. My sister has been greeted with a lot of love, tears, respect by his friends and coworkers. Everyone had nothing but good things to say. He was someone to them and even though he was not in our lives the way we wanted him to, there was someone there. I am grateful that he had some form of love in his life.

I would like to think that in his own complicated way, he did care but kept his distance to protect us from something? To keep us from the life that was so different than ours?

He was viewed as funny, loving, he had a beautiful pitbull named Jake that he received to help his broken heart from the loss of another dog, he helped his friends, he cared. Somewhere in there he was a person and I just can’t for the life understand why he couldn’t be those things with us. I dunno. I am just trying so hard to come to grips with the fact that I will never know why.

Today is the day when it hit me. I let so much of the bad memories overshadow what little good I had to remember him by. There are several things that were good… he helped me get back on a motorcycle after a traumatic accident, he exposed me to heavy metal, he fixed my car when I was broke, we laughed about stupid shit when he was around. It may have been few and far between but it was there. Instead of holding on to the positive I let all the disappointment he handed our way become the forefront. I feel horrible for being so angry and negative about the whole thing. At this point it is just too late, he’s gone and all I am left with was “did I try hard enough?”.

Today my family will be saying their goodbyes prior to cremation. I will not be there with them. I feel bad for not being there but honestly, viewings are not something I have the ability to handle. I don’t want to taint what little memories I have of him by one horrible visual, a visual of the vessel that was so broken and couldn’t take it anymore.

If there is something good that is coming out of all of this is that I am learning so much about the kindness of strangers. The outpour from people who don’t even “know” me has been overwhelming, to the point of tears. It is also bringing me even closer to the family that he has left behind. I need to cling on to that, appreciate it while I still have it cause who knows what may come next…

Life is something that a lot of people take for granted. I have been near death myself on more than one occasion and something kept me here. I will be damned if I am going to waste another precious minute on complaint, disregard and disrespect for the life I was given. There is more to be learned here.