48 seems so small.

Today you should be 48, but will be forever frozen at 47.

Or at least I think you would have been 48. I was never very good at remembering how old you were.

I really can’t recall any of your birthdays or parties when we were young.

Here are 48 memories I have of you. 48 things that I hope I can hold on to. 48 things that we shared.

1. Huge spider we saw in Georgia in the creek behind the grandparent’s house.
2. Being somewhat scared of the crawl space in Athens.
3. Sharing a room in the duplex.
4. Metallica
5. Telling me to buy the Beastie Boys but I somehow bought a very, very different album because I mixed up the names.
6. Paper routes.
7. Sneaking beers.
8. Sneaking more beers.
9. Sitting on the highland hill drinking beers and getting caught.
10. The NASA phones.
11. Your damn, damn class ring.
12. Getting called into the school office over and over again because the bill wasn’t paid.
13. St. Johns weekend visit.
14. Telling me the QP story.
15. Chasing me around with the hot wheels track.
16. That weird ghost gun thing.
17. tricking Meghan into thinking we had a ghost but it was really a flashlight.
18. Shooting the BB gun in the basement.
19. Sneaking in some TV time when we were never allowed to watch TV.
20. Eating horrible french fries at Bridgemans.
21. Using the little window upstairs as a crossbow and shooting stuff into the street.
22. You telling me what a tornado was and I thought we were doomed.
23. Hide and seek at the duplex. You shadowed me and I never found you.
24. You disappearing in Florida.
25. Playing cowboys in Wisconsin.
26. Playing in the dirt patch in Wisconsin.
27. Sleeping in the park in Pentwater.
28. You always wanting to smooth things over, or sweep them under the rug, but I wanted to air it out! (with a lot of choice words)
29. The only vacation we took as a family.
30. Me stealing your Steven King books and mostly putting them back before you realized.
31. Dove ice cream bars.
32. David Letterman.
33. Dr. Who.
34. Coffee.
35. Adventures in Grandmas attic. Remember all those old pencils?
36. Adventures in the rec room, what was up with all the little booze bottles?
37. Your stories. Telling me something that should have taken two minutes but you just went on and on and on.
38. Suprised me on my 30th.
39. Suprised me for my masters graduation and brought Colin.
40. Your damn pocket knife. Aidan is obsessed with them because of you. I never told you that.
41. When I texted you on some old system that alerted you it was an emergency. You freaked and I laughed.
42. Cheeseburger, coke and fries. What we always ordered when traveling with the grandparents. They were always annoyed when we did that.
43. That purple drink I spilled on grandma and we both thought I would be banished from the family for making a mistake.
44. When Dad kicked that duct when your brand new BMX bike was stolen.
45. food fight at dinner when I threw spaghetti at you.
46. Corey – your dang bird.
47. Our red metal fire trucks
48. Watching Emergency.