His nickname was ‘Dice‘ I told him that I thought it was a little silly when I went home in 2005. However, it was nice that he was “bonding” with the guys on his block and he had gotten a nickname out of it. I only start crying when I wonder what his last thoughts were or what he had hoped to do this year. I decided to draw him with the dice.

I remembered always asking him whether he had a girlfriend or not. He had some pretty interesting relationships and would tell me random things about them, not the entire stories of course, he would much rather be discreet. I could never get over the fact that he was dating because he was so young, and I was protective of my baby brother. He told me that he had “hit on” a woman once and I freaked out because she was so much older than me.

“Does she know how old you are?!” I asked really shocked.
He did his little grin that I was always fond of and turned.
“Oh boy, I don’t know what to do with you,” I responded. Everyone thought he was so much older because of his stature. I have no idea how any woman would look at this lanky brother of mine and thought he was 19-21 at age 16. I also couldn’t tell him what to do because I felt that I would be lecturing.

“My name is ‘Dice’ now,” he told me when I visited.
“Dice, huh? I don’t know… I kind of like Gilbert Better. I will be calling you Gilbert, feels a little strange calling you Dice.”

I will call him Dice because he wanted it.

Thanks Johanna for donating to the Fund today! I really appreciate everyone’s messages, voice mail, emails etc. Sometimes I got overwhelmed so I didn’t respond but it’s well received.