Kyle,
What a lovely tribute to your brother. Thank you for sharing such an intimate part of your life.

I have a beautiful wooden hand fan with a yellow tassle that belonged to my grandmother. It's such a simple object but it reminds me of my grandmother's love for the theater, her own dramatic flair and her feminine. old school style. It makes me smile everytime I pass by.

Happy Holidays

Sorry to hear about your loss. My mother died when I was 4-1/2, and besides the few pictures I've been able to claim (wedding, evening formals), I now have her wedding-hat(!) and some Danish wood pieces (2 birds, 2 fish) that sat in drawers in my dad's house for all the intervening years until recently (after years of shared apartments) I bought my own co-op and finally had a place to mount/display them prominently. As you say too, they remind me of her presence and bring me great joy and comfort.

Kyle, this is such an incredible story. Thank you for sharing it. You're very lucky to have had a brother like that ... and for the time you got to spend with him while he was here.

Very moving story. I have lived in tiny apartments in NYC for the past almost ten years and the only piece of furniture that has come with me each time is a sewing cabinet of my Grandma's that has the orginal 1960s bernina sewing machine with it. Although I don't sew as much as I would like to I love knowing I have a treasured piece of my grandmother with me wherever I go.

My basement flooded this year during the excessive rains that hit the north from Hurricane Ike. I lost a lot of Christmas tree ornaments, but the two most precious ones were fine. One is a plastic snowman and the other is a paper Santa head. They are tacky as can be, but they came from my grandparents' Christmas tree and are at least sixty years old.

They are on my Christmas tree right now.

Happy holidays, Kyle.

My grandfather was an Air Canada mechanic for more than 30 years. When he died a few years ago, my grandmother gave me some of Grandpa's airline collectables. My favourite is an old Air Canada beer mug, which I rarely use for beer but drink out of almost every day.

Thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like your brother was a truly special person.

Your request reminds me of something sweet my sister did for me this year. Our maternal grandmother passed away several years ago and my mom gave me one of her rings. I wore the ring regularly and it was a cherished possession. Unfortunately, my apartment was broken into this past summer and the ring was one of the items that was stolen. Several months later I was at my sister's house for the weekend and she presented me with a watch that had belonged to our grandmother. Even though the break-in hadn't been a part of our conversation that weekend, she remembered I lost the ring and wanted me to have something of our grandmother's to make up for it.

My brother Daniel passed away approximately 4 years ago and I am grateful that in the 26 years of his life, I had the honor of being his sister.

His his love of music will always make me think of him since that was where his heart was. He was a kind and compassionate person. He would give you the shirt off his back and his very last dollar if you needed it. I wish that I was half the person he was in his short life. May Daniel and your brother Jeff share in the joy of everlasting life.

This is just beautiful. Thank you for writing it, and for sharing it with us.

Your description of Jeff makes me feel sure he felt as lucky to be your brother as you did to be his. You'll meet again.

Thank you for this beautiful story.

My grandmother lived with us for the last months of her life. When she passed on, I inherited a pair of her diamonds, and I also took a classic trenchcoat. After a year or so in my closet I realized that the trenchcoat was made for someone of much more ample proportions, so I decided to donate it. I checked the pockets, as I always do, and found a white handkerchief printed with roses. It still carried the powdery, lotiony fragrance that I associated with her from my earliest memories.

I gave away the coat and kept the handkerchief.

Thank you for sharing this. It's lovely and moving. Your brother sounds like he was a wonderful and loving person.
Stacey

Kyle, Your story was so moving. My dad passed away earlier this year and with all of the memories I've shuffled through over the last 10 months I continue to be surprised at some of those memories I hadn’t thought of in years.

When I was about 6 my Dad and I were walking in Gettysburg during another family trip to some historic site. We were walking down this muddy path and there was an old rusty horse shoe on the ground. With my youthful obsession with horses and the mystique of Gettysburg I imagined that it came off of the hoof of some soldier during the battle. My dad picked up the horse shoe and when we got home he went down to his workshop. He cut a plaque out of wood and mounted the shoe to it, tilted just a little to the side so the "good luck" would slowly sprinkle out. He then mounted it above my bedroom door, where it still lives. Every time I go home to visit my Mom I walked under that horseshoe and get a little misting of good luck.

Thank you for triggering that memory for me.

This is a touching post. Thank you :) My Dad passed away when I was 15. I keep a lot of his things in my home and they remind me of him on a daily basis. It's really wonderful to hear similar stories.

thank you, Kyle.

next week, i think i'll hug my sister extra-tight.

my father died almost 8 years ago and i wear his wedding ring every day - papa had small fingers.

Thank you for such a beautiful remembrance of your beloved brother. Death is so strange, and while I haven't had the acute pain of losing sibling, I did recently lose the woman who, along with my mother, raised me--my Grandma Jerry. She was almost 103 when she died, and lived an amazing life. She gave me her antique writing desk when I moved away to college, one with a cranny for every envelope and paper, shelves underneath, and a mirror on top. It had belonged to her mother, who died when she was just 5 years old. I also have an incredible bookshelf from the 30s, with rounded corners, used when she first set-up house with my grandfather. She held on to life with an incredible will, had this amazing ability to rebel against everything without ruffling anyone's feathers...was a single mom in the forties, got a PhD in the fifties, fought against segregation in the schools, and always spoke her mind. Thank you for reminding me how close she still is. With sympathy and gratitude.

thank you for sharing your story and your insight

this is beautiful

When my grandmother died, one of the only things she put in her will was a request that I (her eldest grandchild) would have her wedding ring. It is the only piece of jewelry I wear, and I wear it every day. When my great-grandmother died, my sister and I took a pair of her earrings and made them into two necklace pendants.

It must be so special to have so many things that your brother made. Not just had, but made with his hands and his creativity.

Happy holidays.

Very kind of you to share you brother's story, one that shows how what might seem to be just "things" can hold such meaning for us depending on who they are connected to. One of my older brothers died in 1982, and I still think of him almost every day. I inherited a piece of artwork from him, and whenever I see it, I think about all the things he liked in music, movies, design, etc., and how he was such an influence on my cultural tastes. Sometimes I open a book and see his name written inside of it and it's like a little message he is sending to me, even though I am not all superstitious or.....believe in messages from another place. I kept one of his favorite jackets and for the first few years after he died, I would take it out and wear it in the apartment for a moment or two so I could feel like he was with me. Keep writing about him, if only for yourself; all the stuff you think you will never forget, because you will, and if you have these stories and fragments to reread, they will always be there for you and the other people who loved him.

I couldn't agree with you more. When my father died a few years ago, I gave his eulogy. I bought a really beautiful leather bound journal. At the end of the eulogy, I asked if everyone, when they got to our house afterwards, would write a favorite story in there about whatever. It could be funny, sad, a memory -- I didn't care. Just something that had to do with him. That thing means so much to me now.

I also have a shirt that he got me from the drag races in, like, 1987 that I used to wear as a night shirt and is now a regular t-shirt. I don't like to wear it anymore, but I will never get rid of that thing. I don't want to accidently spill something on it that I can't get off.

My dad was a haybucker. I inherited his hay hooks. I am going to try to display them in my son's playroom with wire as safely as I can soon. I love to hold them. I used them for a summer when I took over moving hay.

After he died, my family found some old home movie reels. I went and had them turned into dvds. It was heartbreaking to watch them and I haven't been able to watch them for a long time, but I think about them every night. I just can't bring myself to do it.

I lost my grandfather to suicide when I was six - it was a good sixteen years ago, but we were very close. He was a radiologist and a science enthusiast, and now I'm an aspiring fossil - his old microscope, a gorgeous (formerly working!) model of a steam engine sits on an old trunk, and some of the many fossils he collected sit on a shelf (including a three hundred million year old trilobite!).

Even though he's been gone from my life for more of it than he was in it, I see these objects every day and remember him.

Grandma did lots of handwork, especially filet crochet and I inherited two tablecloths (along with a plug of Grandpa's unchewed tobacco-she hadn't had the heart to throw it out after Grandpa passed)away 20 years earlier). Dad made remote control ship and plane models so I have one steam launch he made. Recently his sister gave me a fully jointed wooden doll that Dad made her in 1939. The doll is about 5 in. tall with painted on stiletto heels,a ball gown sewn by Dad. Pretty excellent work for a 14 year old boy. These treasures are priceless to me.

Kyle,

Thanks for sharing. This was wonderful to read.

Thanks again,

Kat

Kyle,

Your writing is beautiful. Thank you for sharing your wonderful memories. I've always been fortunate for my siblings but you reiterate how close those bonds can be.

It seems as though carpenters or woodworkers are generous by nature? My grandfather was an arena manager in the 70-90's, but in his 'second life' as he said, he was a craftsman. He and my grandmother turned the downstairs level of their house into a workshop/craft area and they would both spend hours creating. My mother and her siblings (and all the grandchildren) all have at least one or more pieces of Grandpa's furniture in our homes. When he passed, Grandma had all of us take pieces of the workshop before she gave the rest of the tools to their town's high school shop teacher. Grandpa's steel ruler is above my door, reminding me to remain as balanced and as generous as he was.

Thanks again for sharing.

My beautiful, kind, funny and sweet fiance died a few years and he did not have much when he was gone. His parents had to sell most all of his few possessions to pay for his funeral so there wasn't much left when all was done. I was wandering through his apartment to smell his breathe in the air one last time when I found his paint splattered boots in a closet. He had worn them for years and they were so thick with paint that they weighed a ton! They were so worn into the shape of his foot and the way he walked I could almost see him ambling toward me.
They have been under my bed since I found them.

Your story really touched a chord with me. Your brother sounded like the kind of man we need more of in this world. Thanks for sharing. Be happy.
Jafer

Kyle, thanks for sharing.
This post really touched me.

Hello Kyle,
I just had the chance to read about (and see the photo of) your brother. I was very moved, and also very saddened. I have just come back from my family's, after a holiday celebration together. Just before I left, my mom and I were going through some stuff, and we came across the letter that her youngest brother--my "little" uncle, a year younger than I, and really like a brother to me--had left, before he departed. We were of course, in tears. But reading that letter reminded me of how heavy the burden of living had become for Gene. I am reminded again of having understood his choice, and ultimately accepting it--even as I miss him terribly. Thanks for sharing your words and images of your brother. They gave me the ability to talk about this recent experience, rather than just keep it inside.
Laura