That day, almost exactly one year ago. It was a Friday. One that should have been relaxed, and exhausting, and focused on the boy (now just shy of one year). Instead, it was…indescribably… nightmarish.

For the last year, I haven’t been able to think about Ervin’s birth, or his birthday, without thinking of you and how you should have been there. And everywhere since then. A big hole is missing in our family.

I hope that someday, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of you isn’t that day in the hospital. I hope that I can think of the good memories, and not just the unfairness of it all.

I hope I can picture you sitting with Ivy last Valentine’s Day, helping her make her valentines, picking out the stickers and writing her name for her.

I hope I can hear you tell your nieces that their purple dresses were the prettiest green ones you’ve ever seen.

I hope I can remember you taking it all in, chuckling to yourself, storing it away to give me a hard time about it later.

I hope I can see you pulling up in the driveway in that big, black car, a few minutes late to every gathering because you were working late and had to clean yourself up.

I don’t want you to be the uncle Ervin never got to meet, the missing guy in our group.

You’re the doting dad to your three. The oldest son.

You’re my big brother.