I want to thank everyone for keeping “Super Kenny” alive. Thank you for all your posts on the Facebook site as well as here. For those that don’t have a fb, I will try and post some of the pictures and comments on here as well. I think it’s important for us to all keep his spirit alive and if that means sharing our thoughts, moments, pictures about Kenny, let’s do it. After all, Kenny brought us all together for a reason. Learning from one another. Sharing each other’s pain, heartache, and smiles and laughter. A few days ago, some of Kenny’s girlfriends came and visited my mom. It sounds so simple. But I sat and really thought about how special of a moment that must have been. At least I know it was for my mom. And I believe Kenny had made moments like that happen. He is keeping us together, one step at a time.

 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about Heaven and this life on earth and what all this means. But more importantly what happens after. I know everyone has his or her own faith. Their own belief. And I’ve always thought I had it all thought out too. Until my brother, my lifelong wingman left this world and entered a new one. One I want to know so much more about now. It’s not that I don’t believe, I just want to deeply feel it. I guess the beauty of heaven is that you truly won’t know until you are there yourself. I have my faith, my religion, and my own relationship with God. And that’s been helpful. But there still seems to be something missing in my heart. Is it just that I lost Kenny and that’s what’s missing? Or is it that I want to so badly hear him, talk to him, feel him. Without any doubts that it’s him. A sign that he’s here with me. Right now. Holding my hand. Am I not spiritual enough that this hasn’t happened yet? Or am I just looking too hard? Or not looking enough? Or will it just take more time?

 

Last week my cousin and I took a last minute quick trip to Hawaii. My cousin and I have always been somewhat like sisters. We happened to get pregnant around the same time and now are both expecting in August and September. I was very hesitant to take a “vacation”. It just didn’t sound right. Nothing is the same anymore and the thought of going on a trip to try and “have fun” just didn’t sit well with me. But with encouragement from my family and having a “what would Kenny want me to do” moment, I buckled up and went. It was wonderful. We relaxed, we talked, we cried, we laughed, we ate, and we enjoyed our daily virgin pina coladas. Because Kenny appreciated nature and the outdoors so much there is not a moment that doesn’t go by that I don’t think of him when I’m sitting on a beach, or by a pool, or watching the sunset. Beautiful sunsets always make me think about him and try to talk to him. But out of all places in Hawaii, it was actually in a taxi where I truly felt something. We had just landed and I was feeling very apprehensive. Trying to get “excited” (I put words like ‘excited’ and ‘fun’ in quotes now because they are new words to me. We have a new kind of “having fun” now. Like I said, nothing is the same). Anyhow, I didn’t get the normal “ahhhh we are in Hawaii” moment when we landed. I was fighting back tears. Trying to relax and be okay with getting some enjoyment out of the weekend. We waited in a long line for a taxi. We got in. Our driver was silent the whole way. Not your usual taxi driver you expect to find when arriving in a beautiful place. He didn’t say one word. Silence. But nor did we much. I looked out the window and told myself Kenny would slap me right now for acting like this. If he were on this trip with us, he would look at me right now and say “are you pumped up?”

And then as we were pulling up to the hotel I just happened to look over at the taxi identification form on the dashboard of the car.

And it read “KENNY”.

His name was Kenny.

And that was my moment. I looked at Courtney and smiled with tears. In that moment I felt him. It was his way of saying “I’m here. Now, go have fun and don’t be good”.

And we did. Thank you Kenny.

I read a book while we were there “Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander, MD. He was a neurosurgeon that got a rare form of bacterial meningitis that left him in a coma for 7 days before he woke up.

I wanted to share something he wrote in there that made a lot of sense to me.

“I understood just how blind to the full nature of the spiritual universe we are on earth – especially people like I had been, who had believed that matter was the core reality, and that all else – thought, consciousness, ideas, emotions, spirit – were simply productions of it.

Humor. Irony. Pathos. I had always thought these were qualities we humans developed to cope with this so often painful and unfair world. And they are. But in addition to being consolations, these qualities are recognitions – brief, flashing, but all-important – of the fact that whatever our struggles and sufferings in the present world are, they can’t truly touch the larger, eternal beings we in truth are. Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.”

 

And to that I will continue my quest to understand this voyage without Kenny physically here with me, but here with me in spirit… holding my hand and reminding me to LIVE!

 

I wanted to end this with a  poem that was also at the end of the book I read. Hopefully we can all get a little something from this. From Kenny too. As I know he is in ALL of our hearts daily. -Love, Megan

 

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me – David Romano

If tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not there to see,
If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me;
I wish so much you wouldn’t cry the way you did today,
while thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say.
I know how much you care for me, and how much I care for you,
and each time that you think of me I know you’ll miss me too;

But when tomorrow starts without me, please try to understand,
that an angel came and called my name and took me by the hand,
and said my place was ready in heaven far above,
and that I’d have to leave behind all those I dearly love.

But as I turned to walk away, a tear fell from my eye,
for all life, I’d always thought I didn’t want to die.
I had so much to live for and so much yet to do.
it seemed almost impossible that I was leaving you.
I thought of all the love we shared and all the fun we had.
If I could relive yesterday, I thought, just for a while,
I’d say goodbye and hug you and maybe see you smile.

But then I fully realised that this could never be,
for emptiness and memories would take the place of me.
And when I thought of worldly things that I’d miss come tomorrow.
I thought of you, and when I did, my heart was filled with sorrow.

But when I walked through Heaven’s gates, I felt so much at home.
When God looked down and smiled at me, from His great golden throne,
He said, “This is eternity and all I’ve promised you,
Today your life on earth is past but here it’s starts anew.
I promise no tomorrow, but today will always last.
and since each day’s the same, there’s no longing for the past.

But you have been so faithful, so trusting, so true.
Though there were times you did some things you knew you shouldn’t do.
And you have been forgiven and now at last you’re free.
So won’t you come and take my hand and share my life with me?”

So if tomorrow starts without me, don’t think we’re far apart,
for every time you think of me, please know I’m in your heart.

-David Romano