On this day 16 years ago my cousin was killed in a motorbike accident. He was 20 and like a brother to me. The sad fact is that he died because he was going way too fast on a winding road, astride a bike he wasn’t licensed to ride.<\/p>\n
I remember the dull shock of it all, and the unworldly grief that happens when a young person dies. I was 17, and it was my first real brush with mortality. There it was, the realisation that I, too, would die one day.<\/p>\n
What to do on anniversaries such as this? I feel the need to make some small commemoration, but nothing feels right. If I were Catholic I’d go to a church and light a candle, like they do in Europe, but in my small Australian town that kind of thing doesn’t happen.<\/p>\n
So instead I’m writing a blog memorial, and posting a Youtube video. A very Web 2.0 way of offering up a prayer.<\/p>\n
The song is Londonbeat’s I’ve Been Thinking About You<\/em>. They played it at his funeral, right at the end, the absurd dance music thumping up into the vaulted ceiling as his coffin rolled beyond the little white curtain.<\/p>\n It’s such a silly song to remember him by. Still, here it is, 16 years later, and I’m thinking about you.<\/p>\n