My friend Michelle blogged about a young girl who lost her battle with cystic fibrosis last week, and I was drawn to her caringbridge site for so many different reasons. As a teacher, I’ve lost too many kids to tragedies–some in their control (drugs, car accidents) and some not (murder, cancer, cystic fibrosis). So when I see a courageous child fighting a horrible illness like cystic fibrosis and rallying an ever-expanding community of friends and family to believe in love and life and all that is good, I can’t help but join that community, join that rally, and pray for that child and her family.Haley Palmer is that young girl who died last week, but her community continues to celebrate her life and the lessons she taught all of us. Her memorial service was yesterday, and the Oklahoma city of Owasso was painted in pink–Haley’s favorite color–as a show of support in all that she believed in. A news report that aired last night featured Haley’s two younger sisters, who talked about her favorite quote:”Footsteps in history aren’t made sitting down.”

I did not know this young, courageous girl, but here in Baltimore, as I get ready for a busy but fun-filled day with my children, I take strength from Haley’s favorite quote.

Today, at 7:59 p.m. EST, marks the beginning of summer solstice, which literally translates to Standing-Still-Sun. It is the longest day of the year and the shortest night. Beginning tomorrow, the days will begin to get shorter and shorter until we reach winter solstice, on December 21, where the sun stands still once again.This is the earliest that summer solstice has occurred in 112 years–or since 1896. In my opinion, it’s the perfect occasion to mark the significance of Haley’s words.In mourning, we pause to reflect, to remember, to celebrate the life of a friend or loved one who has passed away. Our worlds stop, or stand-still, during this time, and we shift our priorities to embrace what we believe to be most important in life.

Thousands of years ago, individuals used to do the same thing during the solstice, where they would stop and take stock of the things they may have taken for granted or neglected. This is especially true during winter solstice, when in BCE times, individuals believed that the Gods were so angry with them that they decided to take away their sun. It wasn’t until a few days after winter solstice (around the 25th of December) that they realized that light was returning (the days were getting noticeably longer), and the celebration began that, once again, the Gods forgave them for all that they had neglected and taken for granted.

So maybe today–tonight especially–is the right time for us to take Haley’s words to heart. As the sun-stands-still at 7:59 p.m., maybe we can make those personal resolutions to get up and resume making our footsteps in history.

It doesn’t matter how you do it. A call to a nephew, a visit with Dad, even a return to a memoir piece you started years ago. Whatever it is, get up. Don’t let the sun go down on you. Take some steps. Make some history.

LIVE. LOVE. GROW.

(picture taken at Loch Raven Reservoir, 6/19/08, as my children fed bread to the Canadian geese)

Happy Birthday Mom. You would have turned 82 today, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of you or our many trips we had taken to Maine, Canada, Florida, and other wonderful places. In every adventure, we seized the day, didn’t we? We lived every minute to the fullest, savored the sunsets, revered the rainstorms, and cherished the winds that breathed a new life in us.You taught me the meaning of Carpe Diem, of patience, and of love. You gave me wondrous gifts that I shall give selflessly to my own children as you so selflessly gave to me.

But most importantly, Mom, you gave me strength to wait out the storms. Suns really do return, Rainbows really do happen, and new days are always just on the other side of the moon.

I talked to the kids today about you and shared stories. Braeden still wonders when you are going to wake up. All I keep telling him is that you are alive and well in his little heart, where you shall always remain with all of your children and grandchildren, helping us get through those moonlit nights to the brand new day that awaits.

I love you, Mom. Happy Birthday. :)

When we moved last May, we debated about whether to bring our old tree with us. We bought it back in 2000 because we had a National Lampoon experience seeking out the perfect live tree. Three bad evergreens later (all resting outside our living room window, thank you very much), we decided to go artificial.

At that time in our lives, nothing could have been better or more convenient for us. The townhouse we were living in could handle few variables like the risk of a new tree every year, and with two more kids to come along in the next four years, we relied heavily on the structure and reliability of breaking out the box, building the bush, and plugging it in.

Voila. Instant Kristmas.

So when we moved to a much bigger home, we thought it might be time to say goodbye to ol’ greenie and go live. For some reason, we decided against it and brought the big lug with us.

We’re now glad we did.

Ol’ Greenie is now the kids’ tree in the family room, which they had a blast decorating. In the more formal living room, we put up a second, live tree. We bought brand new glass ornaments, garland, and ribbon for the tree, and without even realizing it, we were building a memorial to our mothers, both of whom passed away in 2007–five weeks apart from each other.

The last two ornaments we put up were the ones we picked out for our respective mothers. Amy picked an antiqued owl, and I selected the angel holding a star. In the beginning, I thought nothing of it, but when I approached the tree to hang up the hand-carved angel, I was overwhelmed with sadness. Suddenly there was a new significance to this live tree that was now in our living room. Yes, it embodied the spirit of Christmas and gave all of us a cause to pause and reflect, if but for a moment, every time we passed through the room. But now there was something more.

We had made it personal. We had made it mean something deeper than what we had been used to.

Simply put, when we shared our love with the tree that embodied the spirit of Christmas, it gave something back. Like the magic in Frosty’s ol’ hat, the magical feeling these two ornaments brought to the room is indescribable.

And that’s ok.

The picture at the head of this entry is Mom’s angel. I take great strength from this. Most of all, I take love to give love, and right now, I feel as if I have a limitless supply.

It was a year ago today that I learned of the life and death of Jenn See. I was reading some new blogs, and I came across Carl V’s site, Stainless Steel Droppings. While reading some of his earlier posts, I came across a memorial post to Jenn See (click here to read that original post).

I really cannot explain it, but I was struck by Jenn See’s death. I did not know her at all, nor had I ever visited her blogs (see I am following my fish and tourist of everything here). Yet, there was this inexplicable feeling, this pain I felt in reading of her sudden and horrible passing. I mourned for her loss, and I mourned for her mother, for OldBen, and for MysFit. I mourned for all those who did know her. I decided to write my own tribute to Jenn See, which you can read here. It put me in touch with Jenn See’s mother and a few others in her circle of friends, and knowing them, even virtually through blog posts and emails, has deepened my sadness for her loss and my resolve to bring greater meaning to my own life through her passing.

I’m not the only one who has remembered Jenn See. Carl V posted a wonderful tribute to her last month (See Carl V’s one-year tribute to Jenn See here). Her memory and her legacy lives on through the hearts and the words of so many people, and I am humbled by this opportunity to contribute my little part to remembering her.

I’ve lost my own share of loved ones since Jenn See died, including my mother and my mother-in-law within weeks of each other. Three of my students have also died tragically, and I find that the older I get, the more time I spend at funeral parlors, graveyards, and memorials, contemplating the value that each moment holds in our lives as we are here on Earth. Since I learned of Jenn See’s death, I have had 365 opportunities to embrace life more fully, hug my kids a little longer, tell the ones I love that I love them, offer smiles to those who need them, and listen a little longer to those who just need to talk through a problem.

It’s hard to remember all that, all the time, though, isn’t it? I mean, right now, I am in the heart of my summer vacation. I teach 11 months out of the year, but I get the last ten days of July and the first 20 of August to call my own. During this time, I slow down, get to the gym every day, take walks, spend more time with my kids, write daily, and embrace and appreciate the natural sounds and sights that surround me. I cannot even begin to tell you of how blessed I feel, in so many ways, simply because I am alive, and I have the opportunity to experience all that is around me.

This is the way I believe life was meant to be lived. If you read through some of Jenn See’s posts, you will see that she got that. She understood. She lived a life filled with joy, with passion for her art and photography as well as for those who surrounded her.

Why is that so hard for so many of us to do? The 80’s and 90’s demanded so much of us to multi-task, thinking that was what the secret to life was all about. And in the earliest days of this new century, we seem to think that we are now masters at multi-tasking: talking on the phone, driving, selecting a new playlist on our iPod, and eating a Value Meal as we head to our next meeting, our next whatever that was written digitally into our PDAs months ago.

I know a wonderful person named becky who gets it. When I can, I visit her page on Facebook (or Myspace…I can’t remember which), and it is filled with love of friends, love of good times. Just yesterday I received a message from her to join her in celebrating some new pictures she posted of friends playing various stringed instruments around a fire. In each of the photos, there was genuine life, love, enjoyment in all that they did. I know none of these people but Becky, and for all I know, these folks might have day jobs that put them behind a desk for eight hours answering phones and attending meetings. Whether they do is immaterial to the fact that they haven’t forgotten how to get out, enjoy life, enjoy the celebration of friendship, to embrace the moments shared between each other, and hold on to love as if it’s the greatest thing that could ever happen to them.

On Carl V’s one-year memorial to Jenn See, somebody posted a comment that I fell in love with. This person wrote that “Jenn See Is. . .” Simple, yet powerful.

She is. Jenn See lives a little in all of us. Whereas her friends will always reflect fondly on her memories, She will always be in the present to all of us who understand that these days given to us come with no guarantees. Putting off another day to tell somebody you love them may be a day too late. Taking time for yourself and unplugging the phone, the computer, the everything and just slowing down for the sake of appreciating the moment–either alone or with the ones you love–is more important than any meeting you might feel you need to attend.

So, given this day, I say to all of you: I love you, and I wish you many moments of complete joy today as you take a moment to look over your cubicle and smile at a friend, take an extra five minutes at lunch and listen to the hum of the cicadas in their summer song, or call a friend and let them know you are thinking of them. It doesn’t take much, but it means more to them, and to ourselves, then we can ever realize.

Jenn See’s family has set up a wonderful scholarship program for artists and writers. The information is below. I encourage you strongly to make a donation and help Jenn See’s family continue to celebrate her life through helping others. Donations can be sent directly to: “Jan-Ai Scholarship Fund” c/o Bob Walker P.O Box 8068 Atlantic City, N.J. 08404. This fund is set up in jenn see’s memory to help struggling artists, photographers and writers. in this way, we are carrying on jenn’s energy and love of life. please help.memorial fish

We buried Mom today. It was a beautiful service, and we had our entire family back at our new house for hours of sharing wonderful memories.

I was also so pleased to see so many of my friends and my colleagues show up at the viewing and at the funeral. The support has been overwhelming, and I am grateful for all of your kind words, your support, and your love.

I also delivered the eulogy at today’s service. I’d like to share it here, so those of you who did not know Mom as well as others might know her a little more from these few words.

Ode to Mom, May 21, 2007

Well, Mom, what a long and magnificent journey it has been for you.

I don’t think that many on this Earth get the opportunity to experience so many different journeys, so fully, in one lifetime as Mom did. And, even if they do, I doubt many have embraced those journeys with such intensity and joy. For she certainly faced many events in her life where she could have simply turned away, given up, and let go.

There’s a reason why she didn’t, though, and I believe genuinely that it was in her celebration of life, in her celebration with God during her 81 years that made all the difference.

I remember during the late 80’s when Mom and I were having a discussion about Faith. We had touched on all the usual topics of heaven and belief in a higher spirit, but then she paused, turned away as if debating whether to go more deeply in the conversation. I waited patiently, wondering if she would decide to share, when she turned back to me and asked, “Why do so many Fear God? Why do they say I should fear Him? I don’t understand why I should fear Him when He does such wondrous things for us.”

I explained to her that I believed the word “fear” was actually meant to mean “to be in awe of” or “to have great respect.” At one time, it may have been used as a means of intimidation so that followers would be so afraid of God’s power that they had no choice but to bow down and show their respects to Him.

That’s not the kind of person Mom was. She didn’t fear; she loved. She saw God’s beauty in the outdoors on her many camping trips. I can trace them all the way back to 1959 where she kept notes on each trip: how well the weather behaved, how hospitable the hosts of the campground were, even how good the fishing might have been for Dad.

She saw God’s beauty in each of her children: Warren, whom she always saw as the great protector, the one who would defend her at all costs; Jim, who dedicated his life so selflessly first in the fire department, just like dad, and then in doing God’s work so that others may know love, comfort, and peace; Steve, whom she trusted unconditionally to provide her safety and security, both after Dad’s passing and after her own as well; and Cindy, her best friend, her shopping partner, her only daughter who knew how to make her laugh during the greatest challenges in her life, the one she drew strength from, even though hundreds of miles separated them. Mom always said that she could not have had five more different children if she tried, and that gave her the chance to love each of us that much more.

She also saw God as a provider of strength and courage as she decided to go back to school to get her Associate’s degree in Culinary Science. Here she was, approaching 50 years old, and returning to the classroom with students less than half her age. But she did this because she loved to learn. She loved to remain active. She loved to live. And she wrote about the strength that God gave her to pursue the things she most enjoyed.

And of course, sometimes that strength and courage spilled over to us. –Out of necessity. You see, even with Mom’s degree in Culinary Science, we sometimes found her food to be, well, more on the side of scientific experimentation than on culinary masterpieces.

I don’t think I will ever forget the day we moved Mom into her own apartment after Dad died. I remember most of my brothers were there, and we were working like ants, making a military march from the truck, up the steps to the third floor, then back down again to pick up the next load. It was like this for a good while, but everything changed the minute she defrosted the “mystery meat” and served us a complimentary dinner.

Now, we would never disrespect Mom by telling her that her cooking was a little less than worthy of the Culinary Science degree she earned. But what happened, rather naturally along the military march to and from the apartment, was that the word spread that a dumpster, clean out of mom’s sight, was just a few yards to the left at the end of the street. I don’t think she ever realized that we were a little slower in getting her belongings up to her new apartment, although she did comment on how hungry we must be, as she needed to refill our plates every time we came back upstairs.

All I know is that we were lucky she never peaked her head out to see that our military march had become a triangular trip from truck to apartment to dumpster, all in good stride.

We may have feared the food, but Mom never feared God; she embraced Him. Let Him fully into her heart. Let Him do His work through her so that others may benefit from such Excellence in Love.

On the day when Mom became a member of St. John’s in October of 2001, Psalm 100 was printed on the inside of the bulletin. This is the same Psalm that we all considered to be highly appropriate to share in her passing. How fitting that such a Psalm would capture the essence of Mom’s beliefs:

Psalm 100 begins,

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before Him with joyful singing;

Know that the Lord Himself is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Isn’t this the way Mom embraced all of life, though? Her life with Dad was a magnificent journey in every way, and when he passed away in 1989, she mourned his loss genuinely and fully. I had the good fortune to take several trips with Mom after Dad passed away. We went to Florida, New England, and Canada. We talked about the essence of life, of seizing the day. Carpe Diem we would shout joyfully together in the mobile home, navigating the winding curves along the King’s Highway throughout Canada, having no idea where we were headed, but taking it all in nonetheless.

And when Mom emerged from mourning our father’s loss, she once again felt great joy that God had led her to begin a new journey with another individual who had also just lost a spouse of many years. Together, they forged a new relationship that strengthened so much that my own children saw Charlie as their grandfather, a great man who loved their grandmother very, very much.

Mom wrote about how happy she was listening to her grandchildren run the model trains with Charlie in the basement. The woops of laughter as they all enjoyed the simplicity of life in a full-blown city, scaled down to fit nicely on the smoother side of a 4 x 8 piece of plywood.

That’s all it took. A few smiles, some good laughs, and always a lot of love.

Then a few years ago, Mom started taking a different type of journey. In 2005, she was diagnosed with cancer, and from her hospital bed, we had to break the news to her that, without treatment, she had maybe three, four weeks to live. It was the hardest thing I think we might ever have to do, but my brother Steve spoke so strongly, so confidently to her, letting her know that she could still take control, still fight this, and still live maybe another year or two.

After Steve had finished, she looked around at all of us, firmed her upper lip, and said, “I’m going to lick this cancer.” And for those two years, that’s exactly what she did.

At first she set small goals: the first to make it to the day Kohl’s Department Store opened in Lutherville. Mom was a shopaholic. And when that day arrived in August of 2005, we covered the event like it was the Media Story of the year. It was her first milestone, and she laughed when we were all done, telling us that her next goal was to make it to her 80^th birthday.

Soon after Kohl’s, I remember taking her to chemo treatment one day, and she and I looked around the waiting room. We were surrounded by individuals, young and old, battling cancer just like her. The difference was that, in many of these people’s eyes, you could tell that they had lost their fight to live.

She leaned into me and whispered, “Don’t they know that they are still alive? Isn’t that something to hold on to?” I nodded, and after Mom went into the room behind the blinds for her treatment, I peaked in every once in awhile to see her, getting chemo, looking patient, maybe even a little anxious. After her treatment, I asked her what she was thinking about that whole time, and she replied, simply, “Why, spending the evening with Charlie in Atlantic City, playing the slots all night!”

And that’s exactly what she did. From Chemo to Kohl’s, to Wegman’s to Slots, she spent each moment enjoying life to the fullest.

Even in her final journey, when the chemo treatments could do no more and Mom became too weak to leave her bed, she still reflected on the good, on a life well-lived, on her faith in God, where there was no fear, only joy for what God had provided her along the way.

Indeed, until the very end, she did Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. She did serve the Lord with gladness.

In her final hours, my brother Jim and I sat by her bedside and looked at how peaceful she lay there. Days before, she whispered of being with our Dad and with her sister Lorraine, and Jim and I wondered what this last journey from Earth was like for her, to be so peaceful in this parting.

Really, though, all we need to do is look at the second part of Psalm 100 to understand:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

And his courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him; bless His name.

For the Lord is good;

His lovingkindness is everlasting,

And His faithfulness to all generations.

To all generations.

Finally, I offer this: Years ago, Mom wrote a note to me and asked me to share some important words at her funeral. I am honored to fulfill her request:

Mom wrote:

“If I’ve learned anything in my life, it is that we should never stop loving each other. My children are lucky to have such wonderful families, and I want all of them, especially my precious grandchildren, to remember to always cherish and enjoy life, to love one another without judgment, and for goodness sake, to always stay in touch with each other. I love you all. I always have, and I always will, from here, from heaven, forever.”

Eileen Westervelt, May 12, 1926 — May 17, 2007

I don’t think I have ever been so sad, yet so honored, in my life.

The passing of my mother was not an immediate thing, nor was it ugly in any sense in these past two years that she battled cancer and lived more fully than I can imagine ever doing. She passed away as I believe she deserved: a graceful, peaceful journey where she left this world slowly, gradually, and entered a new peaceful world on the other side of all that we know to be true here on Earth. We all had our chance to say goodbye when she was aware of what was happening, and then we had our time with her as she left us slowly, breath by breath, until her final exhale at 12:10 yesterday morning.

My brother and I had a very special hour with her less than three hours before she died. The room was dimly lit, quiet despite the sound of the oxygen generator running in the next room. In this, my final hour with her, there was a greater, almost indefinable spirituality that I experienced, where we spent much of the time in silence, wondering where she was in the journey, what she was experiencing as she left this world and entered a new one.

There was no fighting on her part, nor was there sadness beyond the immediate realization of losing our mother. Instead, there was a certain honor to be with her at this time as she let go.

When my father passed away 17 years ago, I struggled on so many levels with his death. But Mom has shared with us the greatest of gifts in her final days. She has allowed us to be a part of her passing, and it is an experience that we will never forget; it is an experience that will always fill us with a greater love for life, for family, for all that is genuine, for all that is true.

Last weekend, I celebrated my 42nd birthday, and my wife gave me an iTunes gift card as one of my gifts. At first, I played around with the idea of getting a vintage Roches CD, as I really miss some of those songs that got me through some tough days teaching in my first years in southern Maryland. But for some reason, I typed in “BOSTON” and rediscovered two of the more significant LPs that got me through junior high school and my crush on Linda…

I bought their first two albums for what one would have cost me at any record store, and within minutes I was reliving those memories of everything new: love, freedom, and great music. Brad Delp and Tom Scholz had really put together something amazing. Scholz’ brilliance in the orchestration of the music took full advantage of Delp’s high voice and unparalleled ability to overdub….They were humble, and they really enjoyed making some fantastic pieces of music.

On Friday, I told a good writer friend after a cup of coffee that I had picked up these two albums, and I was enjoying the heck out of the lyrics, the notes, and the memories.

A few hours later, I learned that Delp had died within hours (minutes?) of my conversation with my friend at the cafe. It was an eerie thing to feel so close to that music, that voice, those memories after not feeling or hearing them for so long.

But then I remembered an article I read very recently in the latest Shambhala Sun journal, where a writer was more than fascinated with the connection he had with his readers. To paraphrase loosely, he wrote that, even though months or perhaps even years will have passed between his writing these words and me reading them, we have created an inexplicable, yet eternal bond between us that knows not of time. For the moment I picked up his article and read his words, the contract had been completed, and we fulfilled our roles as writer and reader. He was waiting for me to read as long as i was waiting for him to write, and when the time was good for both of us, we met.

Delp’s music reminds me of this bond between the artist and the audience. He has given us all the greatest of gifts with his voice, and we are the lucky ones to be the recipients time and time again, even beyond his time here on Earth.

May we all find a way to make that bond with the ones we love, even if we have not yet met them. It does not matter if it is music, poetry, art, sculpture, architecture, philosophy, or medical discoveries; let us all leave that message to be discovered over and over again, for all generations yet to be born.

It’s hard to imagine any writer not being influenced in some way by the now-late Donald Murray, even if the name doesn’t ring a bell.

I was first introduced to his writing and his teaching in 1989. I was a Summer Fellow at the Maryland Writing Project’s Summer Institute, a newbie still to the world of teaching, but a hack writer who knew only that this bug, this thing inside me that compelled me to write was here to stay.

The Institute, a five-week program that invited teachers from around the state to devote most of their summer to learning about writing and teaching, was supposed to prepare me to share this new-found knowledge with other teachers in my school and around the county. That was the goal. But I couldn’t plan the untimely death of my father just two months before our first meeting, and I certainly couldn’t plan the timeliness of just how life-changing the Institute would be for me as a person, me as a writer.

The teaching impact, that came later.

For me, on that first day, I bought my copy of Murray’s Write To Learn, a rather flimsy paperback book about how writing leads to discovery of our selves, and discovery leads to a life worth living, and a life worth living leads to–well, to everything good. Including all that happens with writing in the classroom.

The first section of Murray’s book was all about the Daybook, claiming your place to write, your place to be you. And with the timeliness of my father’s passing, I jumped headfirst into the pages of Daybook I, a cheap, green-blue spiral notebook of 70 pages that led me along the paths of self-discovery for those five weeks. I pondered Thoreau’s writings, my own father’s actions in his life, the power of spirituality, of love, of patriotism, of life itself. In those five weeks, Murray gave me license to be me, take risks, ask the questions I never had the courage to ask.

Since that summer, I have completed over 30 daybooks, some of them spiral notebooks, others with leather covers, some blank, some ruled, some large, some small (I’ve come to favor the bigger blank books, with the hard cover). Between the covers of all of these books remains me: raw, emotional, contemplative, happy, sad, angry, hopeful. Story ideas, examples of good writing, good living, life-changing quotes, drawings…it’s all in there, uncensored.
At just about the same time Donald Murray was leaving this world, I was making the decision to pack up all of my daybooks, finished and unfinished, and focus only on my one Daybook throughout 2007, a sort of tribute to the sanctity of this journal of all-things, all-thoughts, all-me. It wasn’t until a few days after I made this decision that I learned of his death.

Donald Murray worked tirelessly with writers and with teachers about the importance of relevance, the importance of understanding your audience, and the importance of taking risks. I can think of no successful writer who has not mastered any of these three essentials when it comes to communicating effectively. The fact that we are all better writers because of these essentials is due in no small part to Mr. Murray.

His passing comes at a time in my life where my writing and my career is in a wonderful but risky transition. After reading a memorial written by Chip Scanlan at the Poynter Institute, I feel like I’m back at the Maryland Writing Project’s Summer Institute all over again. But this time, it’s 2007, not 1989. The risks I am ready to take will begin on the pages of my daybook, just they always have, but thanks to the life Donald Murray lived and the countless contributions he made to writers all over the world, those risks in ink will spill forward into a new career of writing and teaching–one that I hope makes a difference not only to me, but to my family, to my readers, and to the many writers and teachers with whom I proudly share this profession.

When I decided to join the 2,996 project, I found myself once again torn emotionally by the events that happened five years ago. To focus on a single individual, however, was more overwhelming than I could have ever imagined.

After i agreed to do this, and I hit the return key to find out who I would be remembering on my blog, I wasn’t ready for the rush of feelings that hit me.

Nothing, though, could have prepared me for seeing that first picture of Brett, a life filled with love and energy, great plans and dreams, all taken from him and his countless friends and family that will forever miss him and hold him dearly in their hearts.

Like a magnifying glass concentrating all the sun’s rays into a fine stream of light, I guess that seeing Brett’s picture brought the intensity and the magnitude of 9/11/2001 to me through his eyes.

It mattered. It matters still. And we will never forget. Despite all of the political maneuverings and mishaps and disasters that have come upon us in these past five years, one thing is certain: Nothing, or nobody, can ever diminish the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and nothing, and certainly nobody, can ever erase the memories of the 2,996 individuals who lost their lives on that day.

May we all say it together, keep it forever in our hearts, in 50 years, as strongly as we do today.

We. Will. Never. Forget.

I’ve included some text from a New York Times tribute to Brett printed several years ago, but as you read the words, look deeply into the pictures of Brett that I’ve added from other sites. See the love, the life, the energy, the beauty of a man so young to be taken from us. May God bless him, and may God bless his family and friends, for now, and for always.

Having spent his teenage years near the ocean in Bricktown, N.J., Brett T. Bailey seemed to pass whole seasons wearing a wet suit — whether it was winter, spring, summer or fall. “It was hard to get him out of the water,” said his father, Kevin Bailey. “He loved surfing. He loved swimming. He loved anything athletic. He was very playful.”

Mr. Bailey, 28, worked as a lifeguard when he was a teenager but there was little question that after college he would become a broker, like his father and three uncles before him. “The financial world is kind of in his blood,” Kevin Bailey said. He worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange before taking a job as an options broker three years ago with Euro Brokers in 2 World Trade Center.

Mr. Bailey was a determined athlete. He started the summer with a 26 handicap in golf. By September, his handicap was down to 19. “That tells you what he was like when he set his mind to something,” said his father. “But one of the most interesting things about Brett was his ability to make friends very quickly, almost upon meeting them. He had such a diverse group of friends. From the New England fisherman to the Wall Street broker, they were all equal to him.” (source The New York Times)