One of my last posts of 2023 – titled ‘3 Funerals and a Crappy Breakfast’ talked about the pitfalls of 2023, the people I lost that year, and just generally how “crappy” the year went (despite its upside). In that post, I looked forward to 2024 being new, different, and “better”. Sadly, that wasn’t to be.
I’ll post a “year to date” review of this year in a separate post, but for now, I’m sad to report that my brother John “Johnny” has passed away in July of 2024.
Nearly a week and a half since, I can at least talk again, but I’m still in shock and dealing with the mental fallout of all of this. I’ve been to many funerals in my life, but this was the first one where I’m one of the people greeting the visitors. It wasn’t easy, as they never are. I felt bad for people walking up, who just don’t know what to say, and often, they just admit that, and thats OK. There IS NO right thing to say.
My brother pushed me to be nerdy since I was old enough to know what that was. He often got me awesome Christmas gifts, including things like a CB, stereo speakers, a ham radio, and more, almost all from Radio Shack.
Over the last decade or two, we shared a common interest of going to hamfests, whether we we’re vendoring or just buying. Over the last few years he had a stroke in 2020, which impacted his right side. As such, I only really vendored at one hamfest since then, and his ability to get around at a hamfest involved solid ground and using a cane.
Hopefully I’ll put up a better post in the near future; seems I just haven’t had a chance to update this site like I hoped to, and really life has just been kicking me in the nuts over and over again. I have done some cool nerdy things this year, I have picked up some neat stuff, but I just can’t seem to catch up.
RIP Johnny…I MISS YOU BRO.