To all our customers, we have decided to discontinue Susan's Basket Store and are no longer selling gift baskets. We would like to thank all our customers over the years for their patronage. We enjoyed servicing you and your gift basket recipients.

Regards,

Windrich DotCom, Inc.

During my brother's junior year in high school, he was struck silent at a phone call he received while out with my boyfriend and I. The only thing the person on the phone told him was "Please come back to the school!' So that is just what we did. The school's JROTC program was having there annual brisket cook for the Christmas season and many of the ROTC cadets, and some parents, had volunteered to stay the night to help keep the briskets moving. By the time we arrived at the school many parents and students were in tears or wore heavily sad expressions from what we did not know. But soon enough, one of my brother's best friends came out from around the bar-b-q pit sobbing as she threw her arms around my brother, we were told the horrifying news that someone had ended there own life. After she let go of my brother she told him what she knew of his death, but I know that my brother did not hear a word she said, anyone could tell by looking at him that he was numb.
I had already been threw this same situation in my junior year of high school, two years earlier, so I tried to console anyone who just needed that shoulder to cry on. After I left the ROTC building, I crossed the parking lot to go back to the main group of students and parents, it was dark and I could not see that my brother was looking for me. As I stepped into the light, I could see him and he could see me, all at once he embraced me and began to cry. All I could do was cry with him, I couldn't even speak, but that was what he needed that night.
In the days that followed we learned more about his death and some of the circumstances, but never the real reason for why. The more everyone learned, the sadder everyone became. His funeral had been arranged and would be held one month before his birthday. During that time I worked at a local flower shop and in this small world came to find out that the shop owner's good friend was preparing the flowers for his funeral. For the last few days I had been thinking of something I could do for the students in ROTC and for his family. I talked to the shop owner, my boss, and asked her if we could send a sympathy flower piece to the family from the cadets in ROTC. With a kind smile she agreed and I asked for donations, from the cadets, to pay for the flowers to send to the funeral. In all we raised one hundred and fifty dollars to have an arraignment made and they also wanted to have a gift basket sent to the family directly. So I set to work making both the gift basket and the flowers.
The day of the funeral was an unusually cold day for early December. My brother and some of the other ROTC cadets that were close to him were asked to be his pawl bearers, so they were seated away from everyone else in the funeral chapel. Before the service began I notified all of the ROTC cadets to which one of the flower arrangements was ours so that they could properly present it to the boy's family. By the time we made it out to the grave site the day seamed to be growing colder by the minuet, but that never deterred anyone from paying their respects. The time had come for the ROTC to present to the family the flowers; my brother's best friend was the closest to the boy and she alone presented the flowers to the boy's mother. No words were exchanged between the two women but the feeling of understanding and sorrow could have been felt for miles. Sometimes the best way to convey your sympathy for someone can be as simple as a gift of sympathy.