weekly planner - week 20

week 20 prompt - who are the men who shaped your life?

the prompt this week came about because of a death of someone very, very close to me.   i loved my cousin, kim, like my brother.  he went far too young and was one of the very best people i knew.  i grew up with him.  i spent so much time with him - camping, holidays, summers, weekends and rode the bus to school with him.  he lived next to me.  our kids were the same ages and went to school together.  i saw him nearly every day, even if it was only as he drove by my house. 

death is hard to understand.  we lose the tangibility of the person.  we miss their voice, their laugh, and being in their presence.  death, and the finality of it,  is a very hard concept to deal with.  i've never know my life without him in it and undoubetedly my life will never be the same without him  here on earth. there isn't a day that doesn't go by that i don't think of him.

so, because of his untimely passing,  i decided to make a little ode to the men that crossed my path that changed me in some way.  most are family members, but some are not.  most are positive memories, some are not.  but all of these experiences, good or not so good, are part of the sum total of who i am today.

what about you?  who are the men who helped shape you?