Yes, I have an unlisted number. I have it because of the idiots that I have to deal with because of my job. I don’t give out my home number to many people for many reasons. I’m never at home and I think that my home number is the ultimate private number. I give it to my real friends and to people I really am interested in. My family already knows never to call me at home unless they want to leave a message.

I’ll get home late most days and won’t return messages until the next day. Nobody wants phone calls at two in the morning unless they live in Hawaii, Australia or across the continent.

If a friend loses my phone number they can’t just look it up in the phone book.

It is very funny that recently I have been connecting with more and more people that I have either lost touch with unintentionally or because of my own stupidity.

So I admit it, my own stupidity is because of my inability to write letters / e-mails to my friends. I’m more of a phone person, which is in direct contrast to my father. He runs the largest call center for American Airlines and yet I can’t get more than 2-3 sentences from him on the phone. He loathes the phone, conference calls and such. On the other hand I could live on the phone, I love the concept of teleconferencing, debating, even when I am wrong and talking to complete strangers just because I find joy in meeting new people.

However I can’t write individual letters to people, I rarely write Christmas cards or any other holiday cards. I just would rather call them. The only people who get cards or letters from me are my kids, which I hold in the highest standard.

My mother doesn’t hate that I don’t send cards. My mother only hates that I can’t deliver to her a hard copy of the blog for her. I tell her that the blog ever changing but she really just wants the stuff relating to Patrick as she found comfort in the words of a grieving big brother.

I drove by the accident site today. The markings are still there from the darkest day in close to 15 years of our family.

I felt a shiver in my heart and yet I wasn’t scared, nor was I terrified. For I saw the site with clean eyes, eyes that saw it as where Patrick was pulled from this earth kicking and screaming, bitching and whining and asking where the hell was the smoking section of Heaven was.

I slowed down and as I passed through it, I felt peace. I felt my little brother asking me to forgive him for not being there to help me put up the blinds or tile my living room. But I found myself forgiving him for not being around more often.

But in the end I found the sun, which had peaked around the clouds of the day as if to say, “I am okay, live your life and just remember me. Tara and I will meet you up here with Grandpa, take your time.”