7 years later - an Anniversary

My brother was murdered 7 years ago.

He was beaten and left for dead in a snow drift.
A month earlier, he was beaten and given a broken arm as a message for our birth mother... "pay up, or next time it will be worse."  She had accepted $1500 worth drugs as payment for a puppy her Rottie, Belle had had.  (Crossed with Staffordshire Terrier, the dogs were EXACTLY the type that a drug dealer would covet!)  She reneged on the deal by moving out of the apartment (and the town) she was sharing with Kenny at the time, leaving him holding the bag.  When she heard the dealers message, she told Kenny, "It's your problem now, don't bother me."

Kenny was pulled out of the snowdrift and brought to hospital with severe head trauma as well as various other bruises and abrasions.
He was a known drug-user, so his disorientation was atributed to drugs rather than the obvious head injury, and he was left to "detox" in the waiting room, propped in a wheelchair for nearly 24 hours... but, you see, the disorientation didn't get better with time, it got worse as the bleeding in his brain continued.  By the time the doctors realized their mistake, and transfered him to a larger hospital it was too late.  He died almost as he arrived at the Sudbury Hospital.

The man who beat him was heard to BRAG in a bar later the same night, that he would probably get off even if Kenny died, and if he did go to prison, he'd get 4 years not more, and be out in 2... He laughed that he was going to get away with murder... And he did.  He got the 4 years he predicted, and 2 years later, he was once again walking the streets where Kenny's daughter still lives.

Today is the Anniversary of Kenny's death.

He would have turned 40 this past September.

His daughter is going to be 12 in March.
She doesn't really remember her father.
She'll never know the kind heart he had... never know how much he loved her...
I hope she never realizes just how much she missed out on, because of one selfish person's refusal to accept responsibility for her own actions.