And we are.

I promise you.

We’re happy.

There may be days that are harder than others, but that’s life. We’ll figure it out. We always do.

Thank you. For this. For listening all this time.

Saying goodbye is rough. I think I told you once that goodbye sounds so stupid and final and blah, blah, blah. But I was younger then. I didn’t know what I know now.

Roads can diverge.

It’s tough but true.

It’ll be okay. In the end.

So you’ll go one way.

And we’ll go another.

Maybe one day we’ll meet again.

But even if we don’t, remember this:

We have lived.

We have loved.

We have lost.

But we’re standing. For all that we are, we’re still standing.

I TOLD my brother that I wasn’t going to embarrass him in my best man speech. Even though I have so many stories that I could tell all of you. Like that time he wrote a love letter to Anderson Cooper when he was ten, convinced that they were going to get married—okay! Okay. I won’t tell them the rest. Stop glaring at me. Jesus Christ. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t going to embarrass him, so I suppose I’ll stick to that promise. And I also promised to keep this short and sweet, since apparently I’m known to ramble, which I disagree with completely. But I digress.

I—sorry. Didn’t think I’d get choked up this quickly. Um. There’s something you should know about my brother and me. We—things weren’t so good for us. When we were younger. We had… we didn’t have the best life. Things happened that don’t need to be delved into here, but I… I remember once, he couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, when I’d come home from a late shift working at the grocery store. I was tired and sad and hoping the overtime I’d been working would be enough to cover that month’s rent. I was too proud to ask for help, telling myself that I could do it on my own. I was stupid, but that’s… that’s how it was for me.

I came home, and Mrs. Paquinn… she, well. She told me to get some rest, and that Joseph, her husband, God love him, used to work too hard and not sleep enough, and she wouldn’t have that for me. She kissed me on the cheek and went next door to her own apartment.

Ty, he was—he was still awake. When I went to our room. And I remember looking at him when he smiled at me, telling me all about his day, and I was so sad because I wanted nothing more than to make sure everything would be okay for him, that he’d be the happiest Kid who ever lived, but I wasn’t sure that I could do it. And I don’t remember how it happened, but he must have seen something on my face because he stood up on his bed and jumped on me, wrapping his legs around my waist, his hands going into my hair like he always did. He was babbling in my ear, and he told me that everything was going to be okay, because we were together. That we would always be together, and even though we could be sad sometimes, we had to remember that.