Today, Rory, dear nephew, marks the fourth year without you, since I’ve seen your tousled red hair, freckled face, listened to your laugh.

Just 12, you were taken so soon, like a young appleseed, ready to grow to greatness but never allowed.

I miss the special moments with you, the smile, the rolling fights to the point where you were just about able to get me off the couch to join one of your child's adventures.

There is an awful void when someone leaves, darkness that spreads to your soul.

Life is never the same again, especially when it is a handsome, brilliant young boy with a great life ahead.

I feel you are alive in the letters your parents and sister Kathleen get that

Someone else has been saved from sepsis through reading about your case

Or seeing it mentioned on their sepsis foundation site.

I knew you’d always end up doing something great, you were bound for victories on a chariot's wings.

Instead the wings took you from us but the good you did lives hereafter.

Another year another lonely grave, a sense of despair that one so good

Can be so cruelly taken.

What I’d give to wrestle you again, discuss the presidential race,

Talk space travel, landing Sully’s plane and how he did it.

You knew all that and more, much more than I did,

Which is why your loss is so tough to bear.

I should finish on a high note but it doesn't feel like that.

So much I want to talk to you about when we meet again,

And we will.

Your Uncle Niall.