My Brother

This was always one of my favorite pictures of Jason and me. It's from my wedding.

Jason Appio

I like to tell the cooldaughters when they are at each others' throats, "There is nobody in the world more closely related to you than your sibling." Now, I know -- for reasons both biological and statistical -- that may not be genetically true (except in the case of identical twins); but I stand by that statement for many people who grew up in the same household as their siblings.

You sat at the same dinner table night after night. Before you were old enough to venture outside the house, or even in those times when there was just nobody else around, you may have been each others' only playmates. Together, you watched your parents fight over directions as you rode along to the next family vacation spot. You presented a unified front against those same parents when making demands for ice cream or amusement park rides. You sold each other down the river when the punishments were being doled out. You stuck up for each other when the bullies threatened one of you.

That was my experience, anyway. I think it's mirrored in the experiences of the cooldaughters. I tell them, "There is nobody else in the world with whom you have more in common, more shared experiences, than your sister. That's important." In cases like that, siblings become parts of the same whole -- parts that are so integrated they can sometimes be taken for granted.

I lost a part of myself yesterday when a drunk driver killed my brother.

Jason and I slept in the same bedroom for our entire childhood. Sometimes, he would push our beds together because he was afraid of the dark.

We would play catch with a baseball or a football on the front lawn after dinner. We would play touch football or Wiffle Ball in Chris Bruno's backyard after school until we heard the Fort Monmouth 4:30 cannon and Chris and I would head off to deliver our newspapers.

As we got a little older, we ran with different crowds; but every day, at 6pm, we would find our way home from wherever we were to have dinner with the family.

Jason and I were different. In some ways, it took me over 40 years to find my place in this world through CoolDad Music. Jason always seemed at home. He made friends everywhere, often with famous people.

There was the time he spent all night hanging at the Driftwood Beach Club bar with Björn Borg. Or the time he spent an entire day at the Lollapalooza festival with Ice-T.

As we got older, we spent less time together than we should have; but we got more chances to be together than a lot of siblings, I think. Thanksgiving or Mother's Day or Father's Day at my house. Birthdays, Christmas, or just a random Sunday dinner at my parents'.

One of my fondest adult memories with Jason is of the time he and I took my nephew to Port St. Lucie for Mets' Spring Training. We saw a lot of baseball that week. He made fun of me, a Yankee fan, for acting like a little kid around Yankee World Series hero and then-Mets pitcher, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.

After I started CoolDad Music, I could feel how proud Jason was of what it had become. He always had bigger dreams for it than I could even imagine for my little mid-life crisis vanity project. But he believed in it. That meant the world to me. The last time I saw him, he couldn't wait to show me the NJTV report about the Asbury music scene that contained fleeting shots of my logo and some footage that I'd shot.

He loved my pictures. He texted me about it the first time I was down at South By Southwest: "Your pictures are really awesome. I hope these bands appreciate it." I feel like there's a great, physical weight pushing down on me right now; but I want to go out and scream and sweat at a show and take some pictures that my brother would like. It might be next week. It might be tomorrow. But, whenever it is, I'll be thinking about Jason.

I'm not an outwardly very emotional person -- unlike Jason, who couldn't get through even 2 seconds of his best-man speech at my wedding before collapsing into a blubbering mess -- but I loved my brother. A piece of me is gone forever, and it hurts like nothing has ever hurt before. I still see him in his beautiful children, and that is wonderful. But I'll never be whole again.

I'm not sure about the next time I'll post here, but I'll be back. Thanks for bearing with me. Thanks for being my extended family. And thanks for reading.