By Bella Crotti 

Dunmore didn’t raise me, but it is where I come home to. My mom’s house sits on the 1400 block of Green Ridge Street. The other day, she drove my sister, Posie, and me home. Posie watched out the window and pointed to a group of boys walking home from school.

“I feel like I always see my friends’ older brothers walking around outside,” she said.

My mom and I held our breath as visions of my brother, Sonny, filled the silence. I could see him running around the neighborhood—meeting friends on Madison, ding-dong ditching on Delaware, stopping at Varsity or Henry’s for a snack.

We slowed to a stop at the light on Monroe, and my mom broke the silence. “Make sure you tell me if you see your brother walking around too, okay?” Her eyes met Posie’s in the rearview mirror, and she winked.

“Moooooommmmm…” Posie’s groan softened into a giggle. We all laughed. This past year has been so surreal that, at times, anything feels possible. Ever since Sonny passed away, we look for him, and in Dunmore, we are not the only ones.

Over the last nine months, we’ve heard from so many people about how Sonny has come to them—in a good joke, a kind gesture, or a familiar mop of blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. We’ve received messages from parents we had never met and friends of his we didn’t know. 

So many people love Sonny. It’s humbling to realize how much of Sonny’s life we will never fully know. There are stories and memories that will only live on in the hearts of others. A reminder that Sonny is not just ours. He is Dunmore’s.

At the end of the summer, there was a fundraising event held in Sonny’s honor. It would be the first time I was around so many people since his funeral. I could hardly bear to be with groups of my extended family, let alone families in the community. Everyone says that being around people is comforting, but I didn’t understand how it could do anything other than shine a light on the gaping hole Sonny left behind in our lives. 

But this event was being held by a group of moms—Sonny’s friends’ moms. Women who saw my brother just as much as I did for many years of his life, who loved him, and prayed for him. Women who had to face their own children in the wake of Sonny’s illness and watch them experience the cruel unfairness of life—all before most of them could even drive. Moms who are no strangers to the excruciating pain of helplessness.

The fundraiser was held outdoors at Schautz Stadium because moms know that wounds need fresh air to heal. As we rounded the hill on Prescott Avenue, we saw a sea of maroon jerseys. “This is going to be good,” I told myself. Or maybe it was Sonny who was telling me, guiding me. 

My family got out of the car, took a deep breath, and crossed the street. The tangy smell of buffalo sauce itched at my nose. Everywhere I looked, there he was. I saw Sonny in the overflowing containers of wing bits, in the little kids rounding the bases, and in the big kids throwing the football back and forth in the outfield. I heard him in the eruptions of laughter and in the silence of tears as people greeted us—his name on everyone’s mind and the tip of their tongues.

It was that night that I learned how much togetherness can magnify Sonny’s presence and how integral community is to all sorts of healing. My brother grew up in Dunmore, and although Dunmore will continue to grow without him here, it will be better for it. The loss of Sonny in this community has forced us all to remember: it is not what we have, but who we have. It has forced us to take stock of who we are in the face of tragedy and how we show up for the people who live right next door. What we do within our own communities ripples outward—there is no action too small or grief too big.

Dunmore didn’t raise me, but it raised my brother, and it has held me all the same.