A lot of days...but you are still missed

Dear Keith,

I don't really write often...I haven't written since your anniversary day. I think of you often...daily...and some days I really miss you. Sometimes it is the most random thing that reminds me of you. Sometimes whatever it is makes me smile, sometimes it makes me sad.

Keith, you are so missed. Yesterday I thought about you. It was heather's birthday...she's 28...I still can't get over how at such young ages we have to do things without you. But I was thinking about the year that you called her on April 21st, a full week early. You called and wished her a Happy Birthday, totally believing that it was her birthday. We have always competed about everything among us siblings and for some reason we started competing on who would say happy birthday first. So we used to joke that you wanted to get in first so you called a week early, when in reality your calendar told it was her birthday. That memory yesterday made me smile.

Next month is going to be hard...Chris is getting married...and you should be there. You were supposed to be Chris' best man. We were supposed to have these pictures with all of us in them. Instead you won't be there standing with all of us as Chris gets married. You won't be in the pictures. It is going to be difficult. And so bittersweet. Because we will be celebrating Chris and Anne, and the kids...but so very much missing you.

I know it probably isn't healthy, but I have a countdown on my phone...it tells me how many days since you left us. 947 days. Keith 947 days. Never did I picture that when I turn 30 this summer, that we will have gone over 1000 days without you. It all seems so unreal.

Living 9 hours away from home, makes it easy to forget that you are gone. I do not live with the constant reminder that you are missing from life. So every time I go home it is like this ugly reminder. I find myself wanting to talk to you or see you. To tell you a story or a joke. To ask a question about something. I hates those ugly reminders. I hate that you are gone.

It is so weird telling people about my brother and the awesome guy that he was, seems so weird to say it in the past tense. I mean it has been over two and a half years and it is still weird.

I feel sometimes like I have to be strong and I can't express when I really miss you. Today for some reason I really miss you.

Well that was what I really wanted to say Keith, I wanted to say I miss you. And as always I love you, and wish I would have told you that more when you were here.

Love Always,
Your Little Sister,
Nikki

Two years ago, I went to bed and life was normal...

Dear Keith-

As I sit here tonight, I feel myself fighting sleep...part of me thinks that if I don't fall asleep, I can change what happened two years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was did a hospital run at work that night with a student, and I crawled into my bed in the wee hours of the 25th. I was looking forward to sleeping in and just enjoying a lazy. Little did I know when I crawled into bed that morning, that I would be awoke by Mom just a few hours later telling me that you were on your way to LGH and that you were in a live burn. Part of me thought you were just burned, but there was a part of me that said to myself, my brother could die today. I don't think I really thought that could happen, but it was something we knew every time you went on a call.

Life was normal this time two years ago. You were still here. Aunt Jackie was still here. Now two years later we are missing two huge pieces of our family unit. Most days I am still in denial that you are gone. I don't want to believe it. How is it possible? I mean Keith this year you would have been 40, so fucking young. I came to the realization tonight that at some point in my life it is highly probable that I will be alive more years without you than I was with you here. That is just not fucking fair. I still do not understand why you are gone. That is part of the reason I do not write as often as I once did. It is not that I miss you any less, I just do not want to believe it and can't understand it. If I push it under the rug maybe it won't be real.

Every time I go back to Lancaster, I hope and pray that it is the time, I get to see you again. No matter how many times I have been there in the last two years, never fail I look for you. I just want to see you walk through the door with some smart ass comment and that chuckle of yours. I still have a hard time believing that will never happen again. I'm not even 30 and I've already buried a brother. I visit your gravesite instead of your house. I write in a blog rather than text you.

When I was home last, a fire truck passed us and Mom thought it was LTFD and I froze. I have not been at home to have a LTFD truck pass me. It would have been the first time since you passed away that one of your trucks would pass me on a call. Luckily it wasn't LTFD, because I would have broke down right there. My every day life is not different. I do not live in Lancaster, so those things aren't something that I experience. It is harder because it is like I have to face this horrible reality every time I go home. I have to relive it.

I will never forget hearing those words on the phone. "He didn't make it..." Those words change my world forever. I just try to forget, in hope that you'll come back. I know that isn't really possible, but I still wish for it. It is so hard to come to grasp with the fact that my big brother who I thought was indestructible, is gone. You were so untouchable. I looked up to you in a way I don't think you ever knew. I admired what you did. I was always so nervous around you because I wanted to impress you and make you proud. I wanted you to say that's my little sister.

I miss you so much Keith. The whole family does. We have had a hell of year, and each of us has wished you were there at your post of oldest sibling. I hope you are taking care of Aunt Jackie, and making sure she is relaxing. I love you Keith Gregory!

Love Always,
Your Little Sister,
Nikki

40...an age you'll never see

Dear Keith, 

This is a day I had been looking forward to for a long time. I remember giving you shit about turning 40 like 4 years ago. I gave you shit because you were closer to 40 than 30. You told me to shut up in the loving brotherly way. I thought it was funny that you would be 40 and I'd still be in my 20s. Never did I think it was as big of a deal that you were in your 30s as I was in my teens. But 40 seemed soooo old! 

You'll never turn 40, instead your memory is frozen at 38. I don't get to have fun poking fun at you and your graying hair and your aging self. I think it is funny that all of these pictures have been posted and are posted, because you'd be all pissy about it! 

We love cake in our family! I am peaking from behind at that cake!

A classic Keith face!

I don't know if I am off to the side excited that it is your birthday or that cake!

Like I said we like cake in our family...

More cake!

This was probably a smile and that belly laugh...

My bow looks good on Keith!

We were all excited for Keith's birthday...or the fact that there was probably cake...

I don't think Keith's pants are high enough!

Keith I miss you so much! I miss your goofy ways and I miss your laugh. I miss you in ways I didn't even think possible. I have such a sense of guilt for not knowing you in the way that all of your friends did. I feel like I missed out on knowing someone pretty damn awesome! I knew you, and I knew that I always had you in my corner, but I didn't know you on a personal level.

I looked up to you so much. You can even tell that in all of these pictures. I am always lurking in the background, just wanting to be close to you...or maybe it was the cake. I was always trying to be cool around you, I wanted you to think I was cool. Typical little sister syndrome.

How is it possible that just last week, was 18 months that you have been gone. It is just not fair. I still find it difficult to grasp that you are really gone. There are days that I feel like I feel every second of those 18 months, and there are times when it feels like just yesterday my phone rang to that unbearable news. 

Keith I still struggle with the reason. Why? Why are you not here? Why am I not able to text you at midnight to wish you a Happy 40th Birthday! 40 used to seem so old, but now it seems so young. You should be here to celebrate this day. Yet you aren't here. You aren't turning another year older. Instead there will be many beers drank in your name, with some pour out for you. There will be tears...deal with it, we miss you. There will be laughs at your crazy antics. While we all just wish that it was you drinking that beer, telling some crazy story, laughing so hard the tears were streaming down your face. 

What I would give for just one more time to hear a story of yours and that laugh of yours. It still isn't fair, and I still have a lot of questions. Mostly the question is why. 

I miss you Keith Gregory! Happy 40th Birthday! Spend a little time with each of us today, as we take the time to remember in our own ways. We all miss you, and our lives do not feel complete. I live each day to make you proud. I live my live with no regrets. I want to make sure that each day is spent in a way that means something. I want each day to count, just in case it is my last. I want to make sure I tell everyone what they mean to me. 

You are loved and missed every single day!

Your Little Sister,

Nikki

One Year and Still Wondering Why

So a year has passed. I really wanted to try and post yesterday but I just counted put words together. This entire week is difficult, because last year it really was an entire week. The nightmare began on September 25, 2011 and I can't say that it has ended nor will it ever end. I know that life must go on, and I will find a way to carry on, and I have, but I still cannot grasp this whole new reality. That series of phone calls literally changed my life, and I was taught that a split second can change everything.

This day a year ago was also difficult. I got the phone call on that Sunday morning and by late afternoon I was on the wrong train headed to Washington D.C. rather than Lancaster. Luckily the first stop on both routes is Philadelphia and I was able to get onto the right train and then home to Lancaster by early evening. That evening we were at Aunt Jackie's and we ate dinner and then got word that it was going to be on the evening news. Hearing your name that first time on the news and seeing your picture was so surreal. However the next morning was even worse. The news broke every 30 min during the Today's Show and announced your death all over again. I had to listen to the newcasters tell me every 30 minutes that you had died and how you died. I do not know why we didn't turn the channel and why we listened to it each time. Maybe we were hoping if we stayed tuned they would tell us that the story wasn't real and that you weren't really dead.

The next days included planning the funeral, meeting with the minister, the viewing, the service and the burial. Each day was difficult for different reasons. And each day built onto what the rest of the year would include. There is always a new challenge. We've now hit all the annual first. We had the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first New Year, the first birthdays, we had our first BBQ without you. The only first we have are the special occasions, which no matter if they are the first or fifth they will be difficult. I cannot believe that it has been an entire year and so much has happened.

I am still angry, and sometimes I wish I wasn't. I do not want to taint Keith's death with such anger. But I am so pissed that he is gone. I hate that he could have helped it, be could have taken better care of himself. I hate that a little change would have given us more time. I try not to be angry and try to celebrate his life.

I did that yesterday. I had plans to take a walk and take pictures because that is a hobby both Keith and I shared...but a thunderstorm tried to change my plans. So instead I slept in and then when the weather cleared I went for a walk and took pictures, which I need to upload off my camera. Then I went out to dinner with some friends and had a drink for Keith.

I miss him more than words can express and I cried a lot yesterday because it is still unfair, and I still ask why...I do not understand. I don't know that I will ever understand, but I do know that I have to come to grasp with this or I will not be able to function and live my life.

It Was Only Last Year

This picture was taken in May 2006 at Keith's Wedding. This is the last posed shot we have of the four of us together. I had been trying to figure out a way to get together to do one of those Mother's Day Photo Shoots for the local paper, but it never ended up working. So this is what we have. It is hard to believe that just one short year ago, this was still us. We could have recreated this. Keith was still here one year ago today. Little did we know that it would be his last full day here on Earth. It is very difficult to swallow that Keith has been gone almost one full year. Today also brings my biggest regret. You see the night before his last night, so earlier morning on Sept 24, 2011 I messaged both Chris and heather, and didn't message Keith. The sad part of this, is that it wasn't abnormal. As we've grown older heather and I have become closer and talked much more frequently, so I posted on her Facebook wall that I missed him and loved her. Then Chris I messaged him on Facebook to tell him that he should come to visit me. I could have easily messaged Keith, but I didn't have anything to say. I could have told him to visit me, but he probably wouldn't have. We didn't talk much outside of family gatherings and holidays.

I know that I could have never known that it would have been my last chance to tell him that I loved him, but it is still one of my biggest regrets. I just have to hope and pray that Keith knew that I loved him. From this I have learned to say and do everything that can be done today, because tomorrow is not promised to anyone. It may be the last chance you get to to say it or do it.

A year ago and it still feels so damn fresh. So instead of writing a lot here, I am just going to add some photos.

another family shot of us

We were cute kids

The 4 of us in a Wheatland Fire Company Engine

Again cute kids

Keith was probably sick of pictures and here heather and I are hamming it up!

A picture is worth a thousand words

It is funny I do not even remember the day this picture was taken. I know that Keith won a metal for Cross Country, but I couldn't tell you anything else about this day. Yet this picture means so much to me now. It is a photograph that clearly shows how much I loved my brother. I was holding onto his hand and so proud of what he did. I mean I was a ham as a child and probably enjoyed the fact that there was a lot of pictures being taken, and of course wanted to be in some of them.

Now this picture I can tell you I do not remember at all. I was I believe 4 days old, or at least that is what the back of the picture says. But look at the way I am looking up a Keith, it started early that I looked up to him and admired him. Now in reality Keith was probably pinching me and I was looking at him. You see Keith wanted another brother when I was born, so I am unsure at this point if he was still pissed off that I was a girl. None the less, I looked up to him from the beginning and it had more to do than just the fact that he was always taller than me.

I wish I had more distinct memories of Keith when we were growing up. It was difficult because by the time I really started remembering things as a child, Keith was already a teenager. I had a realization the other night, that for as long as I literally can remember Keith was a firefighter. He joined LTFD as a junior member in his early teens, and he is 11 years older than me, so by the time I started retaining memories he was already a firefighter.

Part of the reason I do not have distinct memories too though is because we grew up in separate houses. This fact never bothered me until recently, because while I remember Sunday dinners with Papa Dino's pizza, birthday parties, holidays and other family get togethers. It was rare that I ran downstairs and saw Keith watching TV or catch him talking on the phone to his girlfriend at the time. Some things that are so normal to some people, it was just never part of my life. It was always normal to me that we lived in two separate houses and yet our lives were intertwined.

However, the reason I think I found it difficult to talk to Keith as adult, is because we never really did growing up. Never just talked to talk. We were always at a party or get together or there were lots of people there. I remember always wanting to impress him because he was so cool and his friends were so cool. It is so funny to think about how I literally idolized him.

This picture now means a lot too, because this is the last picture I have of Keith and I together. I cropped out Chris and heather, to be able to have a picture with just us. He was always the shutterbug behind the camera so there are more pictures of others not him

Keith-

I hate how pictures are what I have now. Just pictures. I wish that I had something else of his. I am fairly crafty, so there is probably something I could come up with that would be awesome from just about anything of his that I could get my hands on. I know they still need to go through his room at Aunt Jackie's so I may be able to find something. But this is not how it should be. I should be able to call you, text you, see you, eat with you, laugh with you.

This time last year I could do those things. I was on the phone with Mom the other night and she said the same thing, this time last year she could call you. We all miss you so much, and while we are very aware that life goes on, we don't like this new normal. That when we are having a family meal we don't have to try and work it around your schedule. I can't believe that is is almost a year. Almost a full year without you. It's not fair. I still struggle with the why.

I have always been the person who finds the positive in everything, it is part of my charm. It is something that I turn everything around and find that silver lining in a shitty circumstance. Well this is one thing that I cannot even begin to try and find the silver lining. I mean the only positive I have been able to say is that if you would have had the heart attack and survived and been told that you couldn't fight fires anymore, well that would not have been a life you would have loved. You would have complained about having to lose weight and eat better, but that I think you could have been okay with at some point. Because all you would have had to learn is moderation. However, firefighting was your life. There is no way that living without doing that would make you happy.

Yes there are people that have gotten healthier because you were a wake up call for them. That is not a silver lining for me. Maybe for them, but not for me. I plan on getting healthy, but that is something that has always been in the plans. I mean I did try to get you to audition for the Biggest Loser with me. Well I may have joked about it, but I was serious. We would have been a hilarious team, and probably would have kicked ass. And made great TV in the process because we also probably would have yelled at each other. Like I could have seen you taking advantage of a Temptation Challenge and me yelling at you, and then you yelling at me for doing something dumb.

What I would give to have one of our heated disagreements...just because that would mean that you were still here. Most of all though I would give anything to hear your laugh. Those are the memories that I go to often, just remembering your laugh and the stories that came before it, or tickling Chris. Keith you are missed so much for so many reasons.

I wish I could tell you how much I love you and hug you. Something that I rarely did and wish I did more often, little did I know how precious time was. I miss you Keith. As always watch over us and protect us. This is going to be a difficult week, we are going to need to know that our guardian angel is right there with us.

Love Always,
Nikki

memories

So I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a burn or a smokeout or been to some type of fire something. I have stood at the end of a live scene. Many things I have probably taken for granted in my years. Most people probably do not find significance if any of those things. However, every single time I see anything related to fire safety or anything that has a fire dept response I miss my brother more than anything. Keith used tog go to elementary schools with the smokeout house, where you crawl through the house as a live simulation of what it would be like to be in a house with fire. Fire safety is something that has forever been a part of my life, so I used to not take that seriously when I was a kid. It was a no brainer for me...in fact I remember the time that we had a fire in our house and it was filled with smoke and mom opened the backdoor to let it out. When I got home I was like really mom oxygen feeds fire.

Keith being a firefighter was something that was always a part of my life. He started running at like 14 or 15 years old, and that means I was 3 or 4. So literally almost every memory I have of Keith he was a firefighter and as he became older it was his life. He was passionate about it, and he loved what he did. It was always funny when we were over at Aunt Jackie's and we were all in the living room but Keith was up on the 3rd floor and we'd hear the scanner go off and it was just this familiar thing to hear him start his run down the stairs, putting shoes on as he ran out the door, and his keys were always sitting on top of the chair inside the door. Mom would yell for him to be careful and he'd be off.

I remember being at the fire house from time to time, and pictures of us in the fire trucks. We knew fire safety that was just our life. We knew no different. So now anytime I see something like the picture above it is like a bonding moment with Keith, because I know about that because of him. So yesterday I went to the live burn exercise that they have a truck that is set up like a residence hall room and they show how quickly it can burn.

It was really difficult not being at the ceremony on Tuesday with the entire family to remember Keith, but this was my way. I am not going to lie and say that it was easy to go to that burn. Keith was in a live burn drill when he passed away. Not nearly the same thing, but even just the title of it. And to feel that fire and smell that smoke, it was difficult. However, it was something I needed to do. It was something I did for me. I am stronger than I think some days. I am starting to realize though that I really need to allow myself to grieve. As I tell people about Keith, I try to keep my composure and I only let my eyes glisten, I do not allow myself to fully let go. I think in order to truly grieve I need to allow myself to show my emotion.

This week getting out of bed has been really difficult. I think because of the ceremony on Tuesday and just knowing that it is less than 2 weeks until the year mark. This morning was probably the most difficult and I blame it on exhaustion but really I got more than normal. I have to figure out what I am going to do on the 25th. I have a few ideas, but not sure. I am taking that day off of work because I would be helpful to no one.   My latest idea is to sleep in a little and then dress in my memorial shirt and go out and take pictures. Something Keith enjoyed doing, so maybe I can just walk around campus lost in my thoughts with my camera.

I still have time to decide...still wish I didn't have to think about it and this wasn't reality. However, I know that it is and that I have to learn to come to grasp with the fact that it is in fact reality.