Memorial for Vinny

I am leaving tomorrow for a memorial for Vinny in Virgina. It's on Tuesday, August 5 given by his work for his family and his fellow employees to remember his life. It's all so surreal. I think so much about it and then part of me forgets that it's real, that this really happened. I can only equate it to being in shock. You are a spectator watching your life. You're living it, but part of you isn't... just watching like it's not really happening. I like thinking about these things and writing them down because it helps so much.

I was also thinking about so many stories about Vinny. Part of me doesn't want to treasure them because I don't want to admit there won't be anymore stories made on this earth with him. Part of me wants to record every detail because I don't want forget any detail.

Here's a story for you. Vinny and I love to tell stories about our mother's meals. We laugh so hard telling other people. I think the only reason why they laugh is because we find it so funny. We especially loved my mother's "chinese food". It was left over frozen or canned vegetables from all week among other left overs - stirred in with rice and drowned in soy sauce. It made Vinny gag just thinking about it. We also loved her frozen french fries baked with a stick of butter. Don't get me wrong, we did appreciate that my mother worked hard to provide food and cook dinner. It's one of those things only siblings get.

Vinny and I used to share a room when we were very young. We had tons of stuffed animals we would line up along one wall of our room. Michael was our favorite name, so we named them Michael 1, Michael 2, Michael 3, Michael 4 and so on. We also played "survival" in that room. I don't know why, but we would get pieces of bread and roll them into little balls and save them to eat. I have no idea how we came up with rolling pieces into little balls.