Missing My Brother Benjamin

Today is the first year anniversary of my brother Benjamin's death - 11-03-2016 - and I miss him. Benjamin's favorite color was yellow, he had a special place in his heart for cats, and enjoyed all kinds of music, He was an expert chess player and played daily. His sense of humor was so dry that most people missed it. He was one of the youngest to receive Eagle Scout, an honor earned by only about 4% of Boy Scouts. He loved his country and served in the Navy and later in the Marines. Benjamin graduated from the University of Texas in Austin and kept his love for all things Texas in his heart by watching westerns, listening to country music and cheering for any sports team within the Texas borders. He was often seen in a cowboy hat and boots, carrying a walking stick in later years. 

Benjamin loved numbers. He kept notebooks filled with the numbers the way I keep journals filled with words and sketches. He assessed life through numbers, daily listing dates, temperatures, check book balances, stock figures, and some I can't decipher. When I would grumble about math or balancing the check book, he'd grin and say, "What's the problem? There are only 10 of them."  My dad, who passed on his fascination with numbers, was a calculus professor at an engineering school. His death anniversary was yesterday - 11-02-1963 - twenty days before President Kennedy was assassinated. That's another post.

They both viewed the world numerically, a skill I've never quite embraced. If you look at the categories to the right on the side bar, you'll see that I have at times attempted to give them more attention. They've been on my mind more than usual lately since I'm keeping a daily word count for NaNoWriMo and keeping  statistics on on my website. 

In an attempt to keep my brother's memory closer, I'm committing to paying more attention to the numbers in my life.