Cheers to Matt

Yesterday was the anniversary of my cousin Matt Murphy's death.  In honor of the occasion, Jacob got us a couple of Murphy's stouts, and we drank from our Green Bay glasses.

Below is a picture of me and Matt when we were little tykes...  

Matt died too young.  I miss him.  Yesterday I was thinking a lot about him and the others in my life who are no longer here.  I think that we all carry parts of everyone we love with us, so that they/we can never really be gone -- but nonetheless there is a hole left behind.  An absence.  We living folk all go on growing and changing -- and though we carry them with us, the dead become somehow frozen...  Who would Matt have grown into by now if he hadn't died?  For that matter, how would the rest of us be different with him still around?  

Big occasions make me think of the dead, missing their presence there...  I thought of Matt at each of my cousin's weddings, and my own.  I think of him when I visit the family, and get to know my other cousins as we change with the years.  I especially thought of him at my Goddaughter's baptism, remembering how he always wanted to be the first cousin to hold any of the new babies when we were kids.  I like to visit his grave when we're in Green Bay, just to say hello, check in with him.

So, Cheers to Matt, and the rest of our dear dead -- and to us, who love them and go on living.