Taft. You were my baby brother and I love you so much. Even though he was younger, I remember I always looked up to him. He had such a good lacrosse shot and I remember days where I would go outside and spend hours just chucking the ball as hard as I could at the rebounder so I would be as good as him. He was also so smart. He could take anything apart, figure out how it worked, and then put it back together perfectly, and he was good at fixing things. People used to say we looked like twins, and I would act annoyed or I would laugh. But secretly I was so glad because that meant I must have been at least somewhat attractive. He was my best friend. We weren’t like other siblings, we were so close, and he really understood me. He was only 18 months younger, not quite 2 years. I could talk to him about whatever I wanted to and he listened, laughed, or was serious. His response was always perfect, and he knew what to say to everything. I remember one time when I spent a half hour at night trying to coax out of him who he liked, and when he finally told me, he spent the rest of the night making me swear not to tell mom and dad. We always helped each other decide what to wear each day, what kind of haircut to get, and other silly things like that because his opinion mattered so much to me. Although what I remember most about him was that he had such a good smile. You always could tell when it was real. I used to help him practice a fake smile for taking pictures, but he could never do it unless something was actually funny, or actually made him laugh. He was so real and lived so fully in the moment. He had an amazing personality too. He was far from perfect though, always getting into trouble, or being annoying, or picking on me. My mom got a call from school a couple times a year too. Usually because he was having too much fun! But he cared so much about everyone he knew and everything he did. He loved his life. I always think of that one famous quote, that I’m sure everyone’s heard. It is “Life’s not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.” Taft was constantly leaving everyone breathless. He was crazy, fun, smart, talented, kind, and warm. His personality was so unique that I could stand up here for 5 hours and it would still be impossible to capture him entirely. But that’s okay because if you knew him well, it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t forget him if you wanted to. So don’t. Thank you.