I was reading my little brother Luis's blog yesterday. He had no regard for punctuation. He wrote lots of scenes, like in a play. Dialogues. Mostly. In one post he invites all my friends to come to his going-away party for a trip. "I hear you boy," I said softly as I read that.

He loved my friends. And they loved him. They were very good to him, and much more patient with the boy than I was. 

I was trying to track down one of his friends from the Best Buddies program named Bri, who I had met in person. To apologize, actually. Me and Luis were fighting online on Facebook (making fun of each other) and she had been worried that I meant what I was saying about locking him in the trunk of the car or something absurd, and had notified people in the program and they had blocked me from Luis's profile. I had written an extremely sarcastic, totally unnecessary email to her. Because I was being an ass. After Luis's funeral, which I did not attend, she wrote a very nice email with her condolences. It was written in reply to my jerk-ass email from maybe a year or more before. I never responded to her; I hadn't responded to any of the thoughtful messages sent to me by many of my friends either, which I also regret.

After years of regret, I decided to do something about it. (Is this my style now? I hope not...) I emailed her back, but of course, it bounced because I only had her Best Buddies email.

Briana Marshall, if you're out there somewhere, here's the email I sent you in response to your email from March 2, 2009:

"Hi Bri,

I was putting together some stories about Luis for my mom for Mother's Day and I came across this email. 

I wish I had told you then you how much this email meant to me at the time. I was so devastated at the time, and messages like this were like little stars twinkling in the darkness. 

I hope you're well. 

Thank you again,

Memo"