I went to Kentucky. My brother's funeral was on Saturday, and I needed to be there for a number of reasons.

Chief among them was my mother. She needed support. She needed to know she wasn't alone. She needed to know that Adam mattered.

So I went.

My sister and I met with Mom the morning before the funeral. It was scheduled for 10 AM, and we sat at her house with her for a couple of hours before heading to the funeral home.

About a half hour before it was time to go, she looked at me. "Can you say something? At the funeral? It'd mean a lot to me if you did."

There's only one answer.

"Yeah. Of course."

And I pull out my phone, and I start typing, hoping I can write something coherent through the weird blend of dread, sorrow, disappointment, and exhaustion. Something true, but not cruel. Something comforting, but not treacly. Something Adam would have liked.

We get to the funeral home. It's surprisingly crowded. Given his troubled history, I think my brother would have been amazed to have drawn so many family and friends. And I have something written. The service begins. I'm scheduled between the song "Go Rest High on the Mountain" and the reading of his obituary.

The song ends. I walk up onto the short stage, look out over the faces of kith and kin, and I remove my glasses. Expressions of the grieving are the enemy of a coherent delivery. And I begin.

"Love is like air. You need it. It flows into and out of us. It connects us. We are made to give it and to receive it.

We often don't realize when we have it. It's just there. Like breathing, it's just something natural. But, just like air, we sure know when we don't have it.

Adam was loved. That started early. Growing up, I'd always been a little jealous of how Dad seemed to favor him. When work needed to happen, Dad took me. When he wanted a fishing buddy, he took Adam. What I had selectively forgotten was being a five-year-old boy, and throwing a monster fish dad had just caught back into the lake, and saying, 'Catch it again, Daddy, catch it again!' So, maybe Adam was the better fishing buddy after all. But, I digress.

We all know, we can't stay kids forever. Adam grew up, and then he grew a family of his own.

Of course, things changed. But not love. That remained. That you're all here proves that.

A man knows when he is loved. What more can we ask out of life than that?

Adam was my brother. And I loved him."

Imperfect words for an imperfect soul. But it was the best I could do.