Hey Teddy, I just wanted to add this to your site. My brother-in-law would've been 50 today. It made me cry like a baby, but I feel that what my husband had to tell the world will make y'all think... "I apologize for the sappy story and most the board members have heard it before but as a small tribute would like to post the only story I wrote about my brother...

He was a good man who overcame a lot and today would have been his birthday. I first wrote it (in anger) on another board long ago in response to who is your hero in life. All the nominations of 21 year old punks with 44 inch verticals and 4.3 speed in the forty started to anger me so I wrote this instead. When it was voted the winner I told them to keep the $200, I had been rewarded long ago. This will be the third time I posted it so I apologize if you have read it before. If I'm here next year you will probably read it again....... My big brother would be celebrating a birthday today had he been alive. While I pretend to be as big and tough as the next guy in real life this one almost sent me all in. He was born on this day and he came in to the world in a way that would make his life tough. I never fully understood and it wasn't talked about much in the family but he had impairments. He only had use of the right side of his body, sort of like someone who had suffered a stroke though he was born this way. He had a left arm but it was much smaller than his right arm and it basically just hung there. He couldn't open his hand or really use it for anything, his fingers were permanently balled up with no movement of any kind. His left leg was okay to walk on and besides it being a few inches shorter than his right and much smaller it worked okay. He just walked with a limp. None of this ever mattered to Jerry though. That was his name, Jerry Allen. All he wanted was to be just another kid. His life always stood out to me in stages looking back. I remember as a kid Jerry never accepted he wasn't like the other kids, in fact he never "accepted" much of anything. He and I played at a park that was very close to our house. At an early age I saw how he reacted to adversity and I never forgot it. When the summer came and the pick up basketball games started up daily he wasn't to be left out. He insisted he be allowed to play. When the neighborhood bullies objected and started playing at a different park to get away from him we were walking to the new park as well. After they saw him come a few days in a row they moved to another park even further away. No park was too far for him to walk to it seemed, soon we followed them there as well. Finally the guys gave up running away and came back to the local park but added a rule. They told him you can play with us if someone picks you. No one ever did. The way the teams were picked was the guys who first made free throws were captains and got to select the teams. I guess he figured out if he was a captain they'd have to let him play. When Pop put up a rim in the backyard he shot free throws by the 100's so he could be a captain. And he shot them, and he shot them, and he shot them. I'd wake up early in the morning and I could often hear the ball bouncing around on the pavement out back. The next time we went to the park I was amazed how much better he had gotten. His hand was small but he'd put the basketball in the center and sort of let it rest until the ball stopped moving around and then he would shoot that one handed shot of his. All the practice paid off and soon he was the best free throw shooter in the park. Since that determined who the captains were he always got to play again. After a while of this the bullys in the neighborhood didn't like it and they made a new rule that the first 2 guys at the park were captains, no more shooting free throws once my brother had mastered that. Jerry had gotten too good at that so this new rule was designed to leave him out again, or so they thought. To make a long story short no one EVER beat him to the park when that rule came about. I'd wake up and see his chores would be finished and he would already be gone. When I arrived he'd always be there waiting patiently, usually working on his dribbling or shooting shots trying to get better. Didn't matter if I came at sunrise or if it was raining out, he was always there first and waiting patiently for the others. Not sure if they eventually just gave up trying to exclude him or got tired of him outworking them but Jerry turned out to be a mainstay on the basketball court during the summers. Matter of fact not only did he soon win over our gang that played almost daily, soon lots of kids from the neighborhood would come out to watch the one-armed kid play basketball. He was never the best but he made himself good enough to be just another kid on the court. Something that was all he ever wanted to begin with. He was only a marginal shooter but he learned through hours of practice to dribble effectively and he played defense better than anyone out there. Ferocious in your face defense up and down the court. He also played football, softball and anything else anyone played. Sports like ping pong or stickball where the playing field was even he was rarely beaten by anyone, two hands or not. School was something he never was good at. He had epilepsy and later I learned the medicine he took was heavy enough that it made it tough for him to think clearly. When he had a seizure he would drop immediately wherever he was as he lost consciousness. He fell hard and his eyes would roll back in his head and he would shake violently. These episodes scared the heck out of me when I was younger and to be honest I never did get used to them. All we could do was hold him and roll him over on his stomach to keep him from swallowing his tongue. He was always ashamed if anyone saw one and it bothered him deeply long afterwards. One day he had the misfortune of having one in school, worse it was during lunch in the cafeteria with kids everywhere. We shared a room at home and that night when he got home he was awful quiet. I knew how much he hated what had happened and feared his reaction if some of the kids teased him about it like they usually did. Sure enough the next day the principal called and he had gotten a 10 day suspension for fighting. The principal told my Pop that someone had made fun of him about the seizure and why he could understand it bothering Jerry he couldn't take matters into his own hands. My father was a strict disciplinarian as well and not only was he grounded but he took a good whipping for his actions. Jerry told me later that night he'd do the same thing all over again no matter what they did to him. I believed him. Even at that young age he had loads of pride and fought for what he believed in. He and I often got in fights together against other kids. Though he was my big brother, once I got a little older I got very defensive of him and the way kids treated him. He and I would rather both take our beatings than listen to the kids make fun of him. Over time he began to win respect from the kids, even at a young age when kids are mean they began to recognize this kid was special. With his spirit and competitiveness the other kids started leaving him alone and actually started defending him against jerks in the school. He graduated high school without much fanfare. As I said he was only an average student and I think my folks were relieved he made it. Shortly after when he turned 18 it was around the time when my parents talked to him about getting Social Security disability. I had never seen him that mad in a long time. "Social Security is for disabled people" he stormed. "I'd rather die right now than take a hand out"!!! I think he meant it too. We didn't see him for weeks and he surfaced over at a pals house and came over to show us his registration papers for college. He needed something signed. My parents were uncertain about the whole thing and didn't know what to think but 5 years later he graduated with his degree. While he forgave my parents for the comment about disability he never forgot it. It seemed to drive him to succeed like the kids who didn't want to play with him in the park had done years earlier. A few years later he turned his accounting degree into a small practice and ended up a CPA. He always was the type he'd rather you kick him in the head than show him any kind of pity. He was never rich but we was independent and lived by himself, I think to him that made him better than rich. Jerry Allen died about 6 years ago. He got cancer and I saw him shrivel up and die right before my eyes. He got so frail and weak near the end he sneezed once and it broke a bone in his arm. I never thought I'd make it without my big brother but he told me he was ready to move on. He never showed any fear nor did he complain much. He told me to stay strong, look in on our folks and please not make a big deal out of his funeral. I tried to heed his words but the kid who fought anyone at the drop of a hat won a lot of folks over in his life. They packed the place with so many people coming neither my folks or I could believe it. The town wasn't that big but the cars were jammed like New York city at rush hour. As we got ready to start more people came. And then more came. An more yet. Had he seen it I'm not sure if he would have been proud so many came because they respected him or offended that so many came because he was different. All he ever wanted was some respect and to be treated equally. He didn't want to be special. It almost killed me when I buried Jerry. I cursed my luck and was pissed at the world for a long time over losing my best friend. One morning I got up early on a foggy morning before the sun had come up to go out of town. As I left home my car lights shone across the park we used to play at as kids and for a second I swear I saw a kid dribbling his basketball around on the court in the rain, determined but waiting patiently. The moment hit me heavy and I was forced to pull over. For the first time since his death I had seen my brother, it was like I realized by seeing that kid his spirit lived on in those of us who knew him. After wiping the dust particles out of my eyes that morning I felt a new resolve to push forward and quit feeling sorry for myself. I never saw that kid on the court again but I didn't need to. If you are reading this Jerry you may never understand how much respect you earned from people you came in contact with. Once they got past the outside package they came to see the other side. People still come up to me and ask if I have time to tell them a "Jerry story". There were so many I could share about things you did and people you made an impression on but I still can't make it through a full story about you, that's why I write it instead. Anyway I didn't have to think long when asked who my hero was. When I think hero I don't think of some young punks with a load of athletic ability and no heart. Those people aren't even close. The only hero I'll ever have is buried 11.3 miles from my front door. He didn't have loads of athletic ability, he didn't have loads of money, loads of smarts or loads of much of anything. What he did have was loads of pride. Instead of feeling sorry for himself and crying over what he didn't have he made the best of what he did have. He taught me more about life without even trying to than the rest of the world combined. They stacked the deck against him and gave him hate. They gave him ridicule. They gave him more prejudice and insults at a young age than most of us will get in our whole life. He gave them back heart. He gave them pride. He gave them effort and resolve and respect. He gave me a hero." Written by D. Walsh