From Ray to Ray

Just a few days ago I acknowledged another anniversary of my brother's death. Ray was killed in 1981 in a car crash with a drunken driver in Sacramento. I try not to think of this too often, this horrific turning place in my life and the lives of my parents. Of the fact that he died on my best friend's birthday and that every year now, I celebrate her life while I mourn his death at 29.

But I also thank God for the miracle of my own son, Ray - after the uncle he never knew. My Ray went off to college this year. Responsible, creative, motivated ... far from home. Boy, do we miss him.

I remember my mother telling me once that she felt responsible for my brother's death. He had wanted to come home from law school, and she and Dad encouraged him to stick it out. If only he had come home, she said.

But that was fruitless talk. Perhaps the crash would have found him wherever he was. No sense in going after if's. My Ray is nonetheless not my parents' Ray. And maybe neither of them really were ours anyway.

We and our loved ones belong to the world, and I am learning now to see Ray as my gift to that world. I can't harbor him in my arms forever, but there is that place in my heart.