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| Courtesy of Duke University |
Occasionally,
my readers indulge me a personal moment, and I’d like to ask them to do so once
again. At 3:05 p.m. on Wednesday, December 13, my brother Gary passed away in
Texarkana, Texas. Although he lay in a bed in a modern hospice facility and was
surrounded by family, I maintain he was murdered. Murdered by a determined
assault of abnormal cancer cells hiding among the trillions of normal, healthy
cells inside his body. Terrorist cells that bide their time and then at some undiscernible
signal begin to reproduce—not like a normal cell simply to replace itself—but wildly
and indiscriminately, purposely seeking to take
over the human organism they inhabit… in this case, my brother.
Gary was an
extraordinary man in an understated way. Calm and taciturn, he was nevertheless
capable of deep emotion. He and his fraternal twin brother both spent their
careers in law enforcement. Judging from the turnout at the funeral last
Monday, I’d say they were well-respected for the way they went about their
work.
My brother
cannot be named without also speaking of Linda. A more perfect mate for a
husband, I have never seen. Apparently, Gary hadn’t either because they were
inseparable, moving in tandem, in concert, in harmony in their world. Together,
they raised a family of successful professionals who gave him a host of
grandchildren and great-grandchildren—two of which (twins, what else?) were
born during my visit to the family in late August and early September of this
year.
Gary is the
one who reached out and drew me back into the family after years of
estrangement. The break was senseless and hurtful because it deprived me of the
company of some amazing individuals with pretty good moral compasses. Worse, it
deprived my own sons of a sense of belonging to an extended family… a tribe, if
you will.
So goodbye, Gary. You will be missed, celebrated, remembered, and doubtless quoted and misquoted, as you
begin that journey we are not yet permitted to share.
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| Courtesy of Pixabay |
*****
Thank
you, readers, for allowing me this moment of personal love and anguish. Please understand that you helped by indulging me.
Now
let me repeat my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And keep on
submitting your work to publishers and agents. There are a lot of you out there
with something to say… so say it.
If
you feel like dropping me a line, my personal links follow:
Facebook:
Don Travis
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Here
are some buy links to City of Rocks, my most recent book.
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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