was born and named Daniel Baxter a year before our family's tragedy. As I sifted through pictures from the funeral, I saw myself as a toddler, who smiled among others' tears, unaware of the grief that was around me.

"When Frank left us, I understood the pain my father felt", said Grandma Stella as she stared, misty-eyed, at the blue midwestern skies above us. "Parents are not supposed to outlive their kids, but there I was laying to rest a child who meant so much to me."

"How did you cope with that Grandma?", I asked, almost sorry I had uttered those words.

Stella Baxter turned her bright blue eyes to me and said, in a sad tone that seemed almost unlike her, "I still had a younger daughter to look after, and I also had the support of the rest of my family. Otto and your dad had recently gotten married, and then there were you and the other grandchildren, which were all a blessing for us all. "

"I did my best to live on, and I also busied myself into not letting any other members of our family take consolation the same way my father did - which would only lead to a bigger tragedy."

"I could not let Frank's death affect our family too much, so I just put my mind into that, and my effort was a kind of therapy for all of us."

My father, however, did not take much solace in that, and three years later he took a job in South America "just to stay away from the memories for a while", as he once told me.

Our little branch of the Baxter family would not see Kansas again for another ten years, which was, in my Grandma's eyes, "a betrayal in every sense. "

"Your dad had every right to move on, but he shouldn't have spent so many years away without showing his face around here for so long", Grandma recalled bitterly. "But then again he had to recover in his own way, even if that cost us not watching you grow up. "

"In the end", she sighed, "it was all for the best".

In the summer of 1982, I saw myself in Kansas again. Dad had gotten a promotion, and his job's headquarters had him returned home, even though he didn't quite agree with that part of the bargain.

Anyway, the Baxters were together again, which made Grandma Stella more than happy for that, and also because she needed as much help as she could get with Juliet.

My aunt Juliet was what today we call a "free spirit". Spoiled by Grandma's pampering, she'd always had everything her way, regardless what Grandpa and everyone in the family told her.

I guess Grandma tried too hard to have a baby girl, and when she finally did, she tried to realize in Juliet everything she had not been.

Juliet grew to become an overtly proud girl, who was raised to believe no one was better than her and to whom nothing was denied. In the beginning, she thrived at school, but as her hormones kicked in, she became an impulsive and impossible teenager .

Back then, it wasn't hard for a kid to get a fake I.D. and get liquor- especially when the kid was a good-looking, fully grown brunette with piercing yellow-green eyes and an attitude.

Grandma sent her to doctors, harassed her and even attempted to lock her up in her bedroom, but it was to no avail. Juliet was a wild child to the same degree that her brother Frank had been political. Her older brothers were not present. Otto had gone to New Jersey, and Dad was in Brazil. It all depended on her unable, aging parents to take care of her - and they found themselves uncapable of doing anything about it.

She had a hard time making it to graduation. The wild years of the sixties were waning, and she didn't want to miss the end of a party that had begun in the summer of 1967. Next thing the family knew, she had run off to New York "to find her artistic voice" that she felt was repressed by the provincial life she'd been forced to live in the "lowly" state of Kansas.

Aunt Juliet had finally made herself become something by the time Dad, Mom and I returned to Kansas in 1981. At 28, she had found a voice in writing poetry, but her wild partying had taken its toll in her life, although she resisted in admitting to it. She still had the attitude, but her youthful looks had prematurely left her, although she still was a stunning woman, and she still lived in a small apartment in Soho, from where she wrote her verses that spoke of pain, regret and other issues.

As my own teenage years began, I became more and more drawn to my aunt and her fascinating stories. More than once I spent my summers in New York, where I fell in love with every aspect of the City That Never Sleeps and everything that had to do with Aunt Juliet. In a way, she was the older sister I never had.

I came to New York and stayed at my aunt's Spring Street apartment as I shopped for colleges in the East Coast during the summer of 1986.

During the day I held a summer part-time job in a small bookstore in the East Village while I sent out applications. At night, it was party time with Aunt Juliet. She schooled me on the New York nightlife and took me to bars that would sell beer to eighteen-year-olds.

It was a clear Saturday night in September when we checked out a live band in a small Greenwich Village club. We stayed there until 2:00 AM when we decided to take a cab home.

As we left the club, Aunt Juliet realized she was out of cigarettes. She spotted a deli and crossed Broadway when all of a sudden a black car sped across the red light and hit Aunt Juliet. The driver never slowed down, and nobody was able to catch his license plate.

Her lean body was then catapulted several yards, and as she fell her head hit the curb in a pool of blood.

Juliet Baxter, an up-and-coming New York poet died instantly before my eyes. She was 32.

Despite a thorough police investigation performed under huge pressure from the local community and with some help from The Village Voice, my aunt's killer was never found.

My grandparents insisted in bringing their daughter's body back home, so a week later I found myself flying back to Kansas, where Juliet Baxter was laid to rest right next to her slain brother who had died seventeen years earlier.

Of all the tragedies that had befallen our family, I had lived through none until Aunt Juliet prematurely lost her life. Not only did I have to grieve her loss, but I also had to deal with survivor's guilt and all the "what ifs" that had come with it. What if I had gone for the cigarettes instead? Why didn't I go with her? Maybe I could have saved her life, but there I stood as my favorite relative looked at the city she loved for the last time. The pain was unbearable and undescribable, but then again I relied on my grandmother's life example, and I did my best to move on.

Our family took the blow heavily but bravely. Grandma Stella was shattered, and so was Grandpa, but our family helped them withstand the pain as she had taught us to do, and as she did herself.

As my dad had done before, I decided to return to South America, where I would remain for the next fifteen years.

I could not return to New York, for it would be impossible to go anywhere in town without feeling a hole in my heart. Kansas was also too saddening for me, so I went to where my heart could find solace.

The Spring of 2001 brought me home a newly married, happy and weathered man. I could finally return to the city Aunt Juliet and I loved so well and deal with all the feelings that came with it. The sad moments would always be there, but I had also learned to cherish all the good memories that I'd lived and could not deny.

I had become, by all means, the Baxter Grandma Stella could be proud of.

When sadness recently hit home again, I was shocked, but I dealt with it the best way possible. I did take off to Kansas to grieve my personal losses, but, as my grandmother had inspired me, I was ready to look at grief in the face and live on.

"I am glad you turned out fine", said Grandma Stella as we talked about the past and about the recent tragedies that would have spooked Aunt Juliet, who was very much in love with New York City to her dying day. "I have seen a lot of sadness for as long as I've lived but my own love for the beauty of God's gift of our lives to me and all of us is more than enough for me to be thankful for".