Just the other night, I was trying to sleep and for some reason I remembered how when mom and dad were first divorced, you used to drive me to school in the morning. I was in the sixth grade and we had moved out of the district. I was to finish out the year at that school and start a new one in the fall. I was 11 and you were 18. It was just such a bad time in our family but I remember really enjoying those rides to school, just hanging out with you and listening to the radio. You loved the song that went "nobody's gonna break my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down..." it was 1981. Shortly thereafter you moved to the city but you still wrote me letters all the time, and I still have every one. I love you Tony

To this day, I can't eat a walnut without thinking about the time Tony and Steve were helping Grandma make cookies. She needed them to shell the walnuts, and Tony decided it would be more fun if they pretended they were performing brain surgery - trying to extract a perfect half walnut from the shell without breaking it. I was probably five years old, and Tony must have been about twelve. He was already exhibiting his awesome, funny, macabre sense of humor. I'm so grateful you were different and interesting. I will never forget you