My Brother; Riley's Uncle

Yesterday, the 22nd, was Eric's D-day. I wasn't going to put anything on the Blog about this since I am keeping this blog for Riley when she gets older and didn't want to put anything sad on here. However, Eric made all of us so happy when he was here. Riley's uncle Eric was so special and I know if he were here they would have a very special relationship, a lot like him and I did. It's important that Riley has some knowledge of him and that I share some of my special memories with her. I was ten when Eric was born and he was the best "gift" I could have ever received. I couldn't wait to get home from school to see him. I would run as fast as I could across the field to "finally" get to see him. He was so cute and funny - a real rolly-polly in his infant days! He used to love to run through the sprinklers naked in the yard and his favorite song to dance to was Footloose. He would pull himself up on the living room table and bee-bop with a silly grin on his face. He 'hated' feet. Why? I don't know! It was hilarious. You even said the word "feet" and he would cry. His favorite movie, when he was just a toddler, was Spaceballs. We had to tape the edited version of it, especially when he said the words "major ---hole!" (I hope no family members get offended by this, but this is MY story and MY memories!) Not a good word for a little toddler to be saying. He had every word to that movie memorized. Whenever Eric and I would go to a restaurant we would share our meals - we loved to eat together. I loved to cook for him. He loved my french toast and would eat like six pieces. (Mind you, he was only like six years old!) I used to make Reeses cups for us and we would practically eat the whole thing until we were sick! Ohhh, good memories. Eric and I, I guess because I was ten years older, had a different relationship than most brothers and sisters. He would sit in the back of the bus with me and he was quite popular with my friends. He was our comedy act on the way to school! Eric always got along better with older kids versus children his own age. He just had a real hard time fitting in with children his own age. When I started going to college I would drive home for the weekend and he would actually get off the bus and run to hug me when he saw me!! Now, how about that for a young man? Not to care about being embarrased what his friends thought. I loved it. Eric was very talented and would write very 'unique' short stories. He was very routine in his daily activities.
My favorite memories though of Eric is Christmas Eve nights. We would stay awake as late as we could and tell eachother stories. Eric really loved the stories; I just loved the closeness. Eric was very creative, imaginative, quirky, thoughtful and loving. I wish he would have been able to see how wonderful he was and just ride out the difficult times that he was going through. I used to hate the fact that I had red hair in school. When you're young and in school it's hard to believe someday that your differences will make you "unique" as you get older. Eric could only look at his differences as a handicap and that he just couldn't fit into the world. I loved him so much for all his differences. I wish you could have met him, Riley.