Thomas Kientzle July 7, 1968-August 17, 2011

There is nothing like death to make everything else in life seem trivial.

I first met my brother Tom in the days leading up to our mother's funeral. Our mother had had to give me up for adoption at birth, given she had only told her parents (with whom she lived) two weeks before my birth that she was pregnant. A year later, pregnant with Tom, she married her husband and then went on to have four more boys.

We had those days around the funeral, some phone conversations, my second trip to Texas where we had some quality time together, and then he and his wife Becky's stop in Seattle before cruising to Alaska. Too little time.

We had talked about the six of us doing a sibling trip to Minnesota after Tom and Becky moved back there. I thought we could go around and show each other the Important places from our childhoods. But somehow we never made the time. And now there is no more.