My brother William was a Baldwin County Deputy Sheriff. He was killed in the line of duty on December 17th, 1995. I was 25 years old, and I have never been the same person since.

He won’t remember it. He was too young. But I’ll remember every single second of it, and that’s the whole point.

I sat in that execution chamber and watched the man who killed my brother die, and I still don’t have a word for what I felt. Closure wasn’t it.

Flash was a Miniature Dachshund who lived like the rules didn’t apply to him, and for sixteen years, he was mostly right. We put him down on December 22nd, and I’m still not over it.

Flash, our Miniature Dachshund, lived 16 years in this house and left a hole that doesn’t make sense on paper. This is an honest account of what that actually means.