Featured Book of the Week #10 - Oh Brother! The Life & Times of Jeff Fazzolari

The grief that consumes you is almost too much to handle some times.

This I know is true.

I spent all of 2009 simply consumed.

"What have you written?" my publisher asked.

That had been our conversation for the past 20 years. She usually checked in every December. My publisher was now my friend, and she also knew I was in trouble, mentally.

"I haven't written anything," I said.

"Yes you have," she answered. "I've known you since 1990. You always write."

I explained that I had written down a few things about my brother, but that it was all too painful, and it was almost nonsensical.

"Send me your notes," she said.

Simply ridiculous.

But I passed along the 20 pages of jibberish.

A day later my phone beeped.

I opened the email from my publisher. It was a contract with a deadline.

"You have 30 days to make it a story," she wrote. "You need to do this for your brother and your family."

I called her.

"You're out of your mind," I said.

"You aren't you." she said. "Do this to get some of you back. Think of how you can honor Jeff. You have 60 days."

The book in its finished form is just about the book that I sent to the publisher just 60 days later.

And then I went on the road a little.

Because the Life & Times of Jeff Fazzolari was award-worthy.

The book was entered in 10 book festivals around the globe.

It went 10 for 10.

I was invited to speak in Manhattan. I made hundreds of people explode in laughter with Jeff stories.

I stood before a crowded room in Boston and followed a really boring acceptance speech.

I said one sentence to the ceiling of that room:

"You ready to rip this room apart?" I asked my brother.

And about 15 minutes later everyone in that room stood and clapped for my brother Jeff.

I wrote the book for my brothers and sisters and Mom and Dad and Lynn and Jeff's children.

It was the hardest thing I ever did and I wish I could say that it helped take all the pain away.

It didn't.

Of course.

But thousands of people were introduced to a tremendous life of wild celebration.

And I signed every single copy I could and hundreds of people reached out to me to thank me for writing it.

"You might have saved my life," I told my publisher about a year later.

"Your brother deserved to have his life out there for examination," she said. "And you may have helped a lot of other people understand. Your brother had a message."

Yes he did.

Jeff's Message:

Celebrate Your Days.