My second brother, Corbin passed-away... left more-or-less physically and mentally alone, isolated from family and largely without friends, I realized that life was short and I was on my own. At five years old, the world shifted, again.

Only two years earlier, my family had suffered a similar loss; though I, at that age, was unaware of my brother's condition. To me, things were great and fine, I was three and life was splendid. I went to bed, woke up the following morning, and everything was different.

My father was distraught and pacing, my mother was curled up on the sofa, crying. Flat, white light poured into the house through cloud-cover. I felt very small, very insignificant, powerless.

At five, I was determined to make things different. Change was necessary, thriving was critical — convinced and confident that my life would also be over soon, I needed to get the typical 60-80 years of living done in the next dozen-or-so, if I could manage to have that long.

My brothers' bodies were ash in a memorial, smiled again only in dreams and memories. Henceforth, 'twas impossible to "just be a child."