You’re missing

Please excuse the silence. I’m in a state of shock right now. My youngest brother John passed away earlier this month, less than three weeks after our father’s death from cancer. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. John had high blood pressure and a heart condition called bundle branch block, though I had never thought that this was life-threatening. He was under severe stress in recent months, both because our father was ill and because he had lost his job at the social services agency where he worked for almost twenty years. He told me he sometimes went three days in a row without sleeping. In his last email to me, he said that he was ready to concentrate on finding a new job but that it was scary because he’d never really had to do it before. My partner Jenn has created a website for John, which includes a slide show set to the song “You’re Missing” by Bruce Springsteen (one of my brother’s favorite musicians). Well over 75 people came to a memorial gathering for John on June 14, though it was put together at short notice. John had many friends, and all of us will miss him.