It was 11 years ago on this day (October 2nd) that my younger brother Jeff had died in a motorcycle crash in Boston, Massachusetts when he was only 35. What’s worse to go along with the loss of his life, was that his legacy was tarnished by people who had lied about him before and after he died. It was extra painful for me since Jeff and I had become very close in his final 10 years.
Jeff was one of 2 children that my 2nd cousin (my father’s cousin’s adapted daughter) had during her marriage to my father (his 2nd wife). She had a bitter divorce with my father 20 years prior to my brother’s death. She never recovered from her divorce, and has since applied all her anger on me for her own “healing” reasons. This included botching all of Jeff final affairs.
To emphasize on my younger brother’s death, the motorcycle he died on was a motorcycle he never wanted. He had lived with two roommates, one who was an unemployed junkie who wanted a motorcycle, so bad that he spent years trying to pressure Jeff into buying one for him. I had opposed this.
Two months before Jeff’s fatal crash, another guy I knew co-signed for a motorcycle purchase, making the whole down payment and convincing Jeff to co-sign. A week later, the junked roommate who wanted the motorcycled left it parked in the back yard. Jeff had his dog out there in the yard and wanted to move the motorcycle to give the dog more room to run around.
In his attempt to move the cycle, Jeff was hoping to just move it a few feet out on to the street, but he leaned on the throttle too hard and the motorcycle with Jef on it took off. After a few miles, it went by a tree, slamming Jeffs head on it killing him while the motorcycled smashed on a large rock.
A woman pretending to be Jeff’s girlfriend when she went to “identify” the body. As a result, someone else was returned to my family, and we don’t know where Jeffs. In a grave with his name on it lies someone else’s body.
My 2nd cousin also through a funeral for Jeff and invited the same man Wo put the money down on the motorcycle that Jeff died on. This man was the first to speak. I later was about to say my eulogy to Jeff when the Rabbi overseeing the service unexpectedly pushed me away from the podium, slamming his foot on mine.
Too make matters worse, Jeff’s junkie roommate had put Jeff’s dog to sleep and scammed my 2nd cousin out of all of Jeff’s money, property and assets by telling her stories that he was Jeff’s “best friend” and faxing my cousin a document to sign over everything Jeff owned just to so the junkie could sell it all, with the financial coaching of the man who co-signed the motorcycle.
I originally put out a list of items online at that time and the junkie responded by calling my older brother to scare him in to trying to have me take the list offline, which I never did.
I listed most of the items on PDF that I posted back then and sent to my older brother, who I found didn’t care. My younger sister had put out and obituary in the NYTimes, leaving several family’s names out of it, including my daughter, who considered Jeff to be her favorite uncle. I felt so bad that I gave to my daughter a five-piece glass model train Jeff made for my birthday.
Most parents who lose a child often chose to ease their pain by trying to protect their legacy. My 2nd cousin (Jeff’s mother) chose the opposite approach. She chose to tell a whole different account of his life, this being that she supposedly never visited his home or his work. She denies that I was ever with him, though I had spent a lot of time with him. She had more friends and support than me, so her lies were a lot more effective than my truths. Her character assassinations hurt a lot of people, intentionally or not.
If my cousin had been on the level, we could have operated to get Jeff’s stuff back. All I’d want are the DVDs of the music we played, the sheet music and the photo albums. My cousin and my sister could have everything else, including his bank account, his will, his business, his guitars, his PlayStation, his dog, etc. I’m not very material. Unfortunately, my cousin was not receptive and gave everything away to a lying scamming junkie roommate.
My younger brother Jeff was a welder specializing in glass art, he played guitar, and he had his own business. He had a CDL but only drove a tractor-trailer-truck to make big deliveries for his business. He had two dogs, though one was hit by a car a year before Jeff died.
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