Shawn is my only brother. Our parents, Gary and Barbara grew up in Wisconsin, where Shawn was born August 11, 1966. He is the second child of 4, the other three are sisters. I am the youngest. Shawn spent his teens as a total California boy – surfing, skateboarding, he had the best blonde hair and totally looked the stereotypical California teenager. He had good friends, a very sweet girlfriend during high school and a smile and laugh that you couldn’t escape.

When I was little he would take me to the beach with him so I could watch him surf. I told him I couldn’t tell him apart from the other people, and he really wanted to impress me, so he bought this bright orange hat made out of the same stuff wet suits are made out of. I couldn’t miss him after that and we would go home and I would just brag about what a great surfer my big brother was :).

I was even impressed when he wiped out on his skate board and came home bleeding and bruised. I remember for Christmas when I was 8 he gave me a little transistor radio that I could put under my pillow at night because I needed to listen to music to fall asleep and it bothered the rest of my family.

Our parents divorced when I was 12, so Shawn would have been 15 or 16. Our Dad moved to another state and for the next few years Shawn bounced back and forth trying to both fit in and also see which parent would let him get away with bad behavior.

His nickname in our family was Gilhooley, I still don’t know the meaning, but I know to us it meant that he was a bit restless and reckless. Those can be good or bad traits, and for him they were both.

He loved God and had so much faith. I hope to think I have the same faith and that he was responsible in lots of ways of showing me that God does everything for a reason and we all have a purpose here, and also that God does not give you more than you can handle.

The timeline is bouncing around here, but my brother lived with my daughter and I for quite some time in the last few years he was here. I tried to do my best to keep him on the straight and narrow, but only recently realized that the things that make me happy and secure are not the things that made him happy.

After Christmas 2003 he left, at my urging because we just couldn’t live together.

The last day I saw him he was on his way to see his friends.

His plan was to go to Florida where we have other relatives, but somewhere along the way he ended up in Texas. We talked on the phone all the time for the last year or so. He really liked it there, he had a couple of random jobs. He had friends in church, he said the country was absolutely beautiful. Of course being a Californian I thought that was impossible, but after my visit to Texas, I understand what he was telling me.

In our phone calls he always told me he was doing fine, don’t worry. I guess I wanted to believe it. In hindsight I would have flown there and brought him home if I knew what was really happening. Just before my last phone call with him, he called the house and talked to my daughter, Marina. They talked about school, she goes to the same school he went to and he was reminiscing about his teachers, one of which she has now.

In most, and especially the last, conversations I had with Shawn he would tell me how much he loved me and thank me for loving him. He would always end up praying on the phone, for me, my daughter, for himself.

This is long and I have missed so many details, but what I tell my daughter about Uncle Shawn’s legacy is that he had a hard life, but he never gave up hope. He was in trouble, he was troubled, but he never hurt another person – only himself. And he believed in God with a faith so strong, and he told so many other people about God and that they were loved, no matter what their situation. He trusted people and saw the best in them. He told me he was proud of me, and I am proud of him.