Today, January 12, 2010, would have been Aaron's 40th birthday. It's now been over five years since he died. All I can ever think of is everything he's missed (from the ridiculous to the sublime) -- including our cousin's daughter born just weeks after he passed away, sister Karen's sometimes national byline, Mom's church messages and play appearances, seeing UK's Doctor Who return with good special effects and the Buffy and Angel comic books, which are pop culture things we would have enjoyed together.
To celebrate Aaron's 40th birthday, I had the idea of donating $40 to a charity or nonprofit institution in his name. Aaron sometimes volunteered his time, helping in homeless shelters. One group my mother works with through her church is South Suburban PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter), which would be grateful for a donation in these times. My mother also helps with her church's contribution to the annual CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty) Walk event. Five years ago, when we held a memorial on this date -- on one of the coldest nights Chicago could come up with! -- we were at Chicago's Women & Children First Bookstore, where we unexpectedly received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Chicago's Thousand Waves Martial Arts & Self-Defense Center.
Or, if money's tight -- and these days it's tight for everybody -- there's the idea of spending 40 minutes reading about some of the things Aaron talked about on his blog -- like Buffy, Angel, or Doctor Who -- or Noam Chomsky, political science, linguistics, black American history, Aaron McGruder's Boondocks comics and TV show (Aaron would have loved the TV show!). Expand your mind in a way that reading Aaron's blog helped you to do.
Or, if this is your first time here, feel free to read the blog!
Feel free to write me with any questions.
If you use any of the various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to talk about this, use the tag #aaron40.