I just can not stop crying about this, being a politico it just hurts like hell. Here is all of the coverage of today from NBC News.
Whenever it gets towards the end of the month I get to thinking about Devon. We’re coming up on three months since he died. While I realize that he isn’t here, there are just times when I get to thinking and it’s just absolutely unbelievable. When I look at his pictures from last summer, when he looked so healthy it’s just unreal to think that he’s been gone almost three months. I really miss that kid, and I so wish I could pick up the phone and just say hi.
I wish I could send him orange tic tacs. I’ll never be able to look at a pack of them again and not think of him. He was just so kind, precious, and sweet. I know that he’s gone on to do much more important and greater things than we’re doing on earth, but it still doesn’t deaden the pain. It’s makes it not hurt so bad, but nothing will ever take it away completely.
I also wanted to include a video that was on the slide show of all his pictures at his funeral. It’s One More Day, sung by Diamond Rio.
This past weekend my Mom went to Cincinnati for a benefit dinner for my brother and his family. The benefit was to help them get back on their feet after the loss of their son, and my nephew Devon. I had planned to go to the dinner, but my own kids ended up sick so I was unable to. I still feel his loss though. I know you’re probably thinking of course you are, but that’s not the point. I know that it’s normal to still be missing him. It’s just such a strange feeling. We’re planning on going there for Spring break so that our kids can play with their cousin’s (Devon’s siblings left behind). In the past whenever we’d do such a thing, Abe, Jessica, and Erin would play with Devon for hours. They played with the other kids as well, but they always gravitated to Devon. He was such a kind and caring soul. He was always kind, and was patient with them given their special needs and impulsiveness at times. When we go for Spring Break though, there will be such a void. We’ll remember the blast we had there last June. The memories will definitely be fresh as they play in the house where Devon lived. I thought about the absolute transformation that their family has gone through. I remember when it was just Jon, Devon, and Corey. Three rambunctious boys. Now when we go there will be Corey, Emily, and Allyson (Jon has moved in with his father back in Michigan). A big change having two girls and a boy from those three boys before. The girls just adore Emily and baby Allyson so they should have a lot of fun, but I know that for Abe it will definitely feel very different. Abe was always the closest to Devon, he and Devon share a common kindness and spirit about them. They connected well. We’ll all make it, and Devon is in a much more peaceful place now, but for those of us back here on earth we’ll continue to miss him dearly.
There stands a family graveyard at the foot of a hill in Canton KY. A town that once welcomed a President, that now doesn’t even have a Post Office nor a dot on new maps. The graveyard is that of the Curling’s. I remember going to that graveyard as a kid, and seeing all the gravestones of old lost relatives like the grandparents I never knew, and Aunts and Uncles that died before I was born. When I was a kid it was just going to see people I’d never met and just imagining who they were and what they were like.
When I was almost 9 in 1983, I remember seeing my Uncle Hubert go there (my Aunt Ruby’s husband). He died after a protracted battle with cancer. It was my first real witness of what went on to put you there.
The past few years of my life though people that I’ve cared the most about have gone there. There was Uncle Tom in 1994, and Aunt Mary Lou in 2005. This year cousin Steve joined them, and on Sunday afternoon Aunt Dorothy will go too, for she died today. She and Uncle Lonnie lived at the top of that hill when I was a child, and I remember going there and all the fun times I spent. The big breakfasts, the green beans and new potatoes, the dinners with Uncle Lonnie saucering his coffee to cool it down. Those days are all but memories now, but good ones. Aunt Dorothy was always special, and someone I cared about. I wish that I’d seen her more in the past few years, but as things go…you can’t go back. I’m glad that the memories that stand out are those of the times spent on that hill, watching Michigan win the NCAA title in basketball while I was on vacation there, romping in the grass, eating down home food, and thinking that it would never end.
With Aunt Dorothy’s passing it leaves only 3 (Aunt Ivy, Aunt Ruby, and my father) of 14 of my Grandparents children (my Dad being the youngest, and me being the youngest grandchild).
Rest in peace Aunt Dorothy for you were loved by many.