This week, I’ve listened to Bon Jovi’s Never Say Goodbye every morning. I love Bon Jovi, but this song carries deeper memories. Today, my baby brother, Kenny, would have turned 60. It’s a milestone that has stirred a lot of reflecting because tomorrow marks 38 years since he died in a tragic car accident.
That same year, Never Say Goodbye was popular on the radio, and every time I hear it, I replay memories of his life in my head.
I don’t remember the day he was born, but I’ve been told my parents played Monopoly late into the night, then woke us to take us to my grandparents. My grandpa, a man of few words, simply told us, You have a baby brother. My mom always laughed about how I told her I wanted a brother because we had enough gwurls.
I remember the day he died like it was yesterday. The phone rang at 5:17 AM—my dad’s voice on the other end: Kenny is dead. It felt like a nightmare, and I stumbled back to bed. But then the phone rang again, and reality crashed in. Kenny had just celebrated his 22nd birthday the day before. In the early morning hours, on Joy Mountain, his life was suddenly, tragically gone. Some days, it feels like forever ago. Other days, it feels like just yesterday.
When I think of Kenny, I don’t picture the 22-year-old man he had become—engaged, working, and living life. Instead, I see the mischievous, cotton-headed little boy, his sun-tanned skin (or maybe just dirt from playing outside all day). I see him running through the woods with our cousin Jeffrey, lying in the grass with his dogs, and trying to convince my grandmother that the gushing hole in his face was from running into a tree—when really, Jeff had accidentally shot him with a BB gun. They were afraid to tell the truth, worried they’d never get to play together again.
I picture my grandmother, catching Kenny and Jeff covered in mud from the creek she’d told them not to go near, stripping them down and giving them a switching, and her laugh at the absurdity of it all. I remember Kenny running wild at my dad’s fast-pitch softball games, always surrounded by an army of little boys playing their own version of baseball. And I see him, tiny but determined, playing real baseball at just four years old—too young, but they let him play because they needed more kids. That was before T-ball and pitching machines. I see him as a little boy with his friend, Cendie. I see him holding my niece, Timi, at his high school graduation. She doesn’t remember him either.
While I have many wonderful memories, the lasting memory is that on February 21 every year when we should celebrate his birth, my parents and my sister visit his grave instead. I’m at a conference—but I’ll call. We’ll talk, we’ll reminisce, and even through the phone, I’ll hear the weight of that grief.
Thirty-eight years later, it feels strange that he never met Jonathan or Rachel. He would have had a lot of fun with Rachel. I try to picture him at 60, maybe even a grandpa by now. But I can’t. I can only see the little boy with a switch in his hand, backing my sister, our cousin Paula, and me into a corner, laughing as he tortured us, my mom yelling at him to stop—and then scolding us for teaching him how to do it.
And so, I hold onto those memories.
“Never say goodbye, never say goodbye
You and me and my old friends
Hoping it would never end…”
Happy 60th, Kenny. We love you always.
