Goodbye little brother

Following my intuition I took advantage of a free trial on ancestry.com a couple of days ago. The very first thing I did was search my brother's name. The next thing that popped up on my screen was the fact that he died in May of 2011 in California. I knew he had suffered a stroke several years ago and was living in a nursing home. He was my only sibling and left home at about age 14 to live with a friend. Our lives since that time had only touched each other on and off. He had one son, a little younger than my youngest child. It seems odd that my biological family has been so disconnected over the years. I always felt it was my job to keep people in touch. That's a lot of work for one person to take on. Most everyone is now deceased and I seem to be the oldest still living. Having lost touch with aunts, uncles and cousins years ago I decided to see what I could find out as long as I was on Ancestry.com. I started a family tree that so far has gone back to a paternal great great grandfather born in New York in 1834. Finding names I didn't know gave me a comfortable feeling of being part of something bigger. Perhaps it is still my job to connect the people. It vaguely reminds me of a book I read several years ago, "The Memory Keepers Daughter". After all I am the one who has in my possession my maternal grandmother's family Bible from Belgium. There just might be a new story in my future. In the meantime I will just say goodbye to my younger brother, Howard DeLoyd Halverson, 1939-2011. You always were a pest!