Dear Tommy

Note: This book won an Honorable Mention prize in the Great Midwest Book Festival in 2013. Tommy O'Neil had just celebrated his 22nd birthday when a tragic work-related accident took his life and turned his family's world upside-down. His older sister Christie turned to her journal for solace and immediately penned her first of many poems to him in one of his eulogies. Over the days, weeks, months and years that followed his death, she kept her special "Dear Tommy" book close to her as a way to maintain her relationship with her younger brother, even though he would never be able to write back. After September 11, 2001, when global events irrevocably changed so many thousands of lives, Christie made the decision to publish her book. In empathy for the survivors left to deal with the sudden deaths of so many loved ones, she wanted to share with the world how she had coped on a day-to-day basis with the hole left in her life when her brother was suddenly taken away.