Got a text from one of my kids today–“Happy Jon Day ❤ “. That is how our family identifies January 9th now–it doesn’t matter who in the family and friends circle has a birthday or anniversary on this day also, because January 9th will always be Jon Day.

There’s a part of me (a huge part) that simply can’t wrap my head around the fact that my brother has been gone from the physical plane of existence for an entire decade. We got 44 years with him, and it was not long enough.

All of us miss him greatly. His quiet laugh, his dry humor, his impeccable timing when it came to injecting a word or phrase into the conversation, his musical abilities on the drums and guitar, his wizardry with technology and all things electronic, his little drawings and calculations on napkins while waiting for a meal to arrive, his long legs stretched out to the middle of the living room at family gatherings, his recommendations of movies and books and bands he thought we would enjoy–the list goes on infinitely.

It hurts to look at how fast the world of technology hurtles by and know that Jon has missed out on the last 10 years of tinkering with it all.

Would Jon have owned a drone? Absolutely. Would Jon have taken aim with a pellet gun at any drone that hovered a little too long near him or his property? Absolutely.

Would Jon have owned a 3D printer? You betcha. He was intrigued by the pen versions, so as soon as the full printer setup became affordable, he would have set up shop.

Would Jon have embraced AI? Jon was playing with AI long before the public was even thinking about it. He had long ago accepted that technology was limited by humans’ inability to think far enough outside the box. He had a healthy respect for how easily Stephen King’s “Maximum Overdrive” could become a reality, so he would have wanted to remain in control of his gadgets, but the concept intrigued him.

It hurts to watch family and friends reach milestones in their lives and know that Jon would have loved to be here to celebrate with them. He was quiet, but he was THERE and supportive.

We know he’s still around watching out for all of us. Usually it’s his sense of humor that lets us know he’s present. Last year during a rainstorm, my daughter was driving home and thought “I’m glad my sunroof isn’t opening on its own right now,” because it would sometimes glitch and do that. Suddenly her sunroof slowly retracted until it was fully open and she was drenched–it’s a toss up whether it was Jon or Dad that pulled that one, but they both were on the other side of the veil laughing themselves silly.

Grief looks very different 10 years out for me. I don’t get that gut punch as often that sends me into tears. These days it is more of an ache. I miss my little brother, and it very much hurts. Every day there is something I want to tell him, so I just have to think it and hope he picks up on it that way.

I still get angry when I think about how selfish the criminals were that took Jon from us. It does no good to plead their ages to me and ask me to be sympathetic because they were young and immature when they did it. My own children have now passed the ages that those 4 young men were when they senselessly committed this atrocity, and my children would never have aimed guns at another human being or taken what was not theirs by force at their ages. I feel no sympathy for the one who later died in prison; I hope he enjoyed his reunion with Jon on the other side. I would not have wanted to trade places with him, because I have seen my brother’s cold fury. As for the other 3 who are still serving their time, I feel annoyance more than anything–particularly when they file appeals or come up with another malarkey reason they should have their sentence reduced. Having taught in a youth prison briefly, I know they have nothing better to do with their time, but I also know they don’t deserve to have their sentences reduced. Even if they only serve the bare minimum of 25 years, that is only part of what Jon could have put to use with the rest of his life when it came to creating and enriching the lives of so many. Our family has members who lived well into their 90s, so 44 years old was a baby. Our family and society was robbed.

So yeah–10 years in and most days it is a sense of disbelief and loss and anger. I doubt another 10 years is going to change any of that, because every day is another day that Jon isn’t here and we have to gather ourselves up and carry on with life. It sucks.