Allen’s Day 2026

Today is a sad anniversary. It’s the moment when death touched me and nobody prepared me for it.

On February 20, 1970, my baby brother Allen – just three years young – was critically injured in a single-car crash in Rensselaer County. My maternal grandfather hit a tree; Allen (who was not belted in) went flying through the windshield upon impact.

I chronicled it in this blog sixteen years ago.

The Tragedy of February 20, 1970

This was one of my most difficult blog posts. All of my emotions battled each other for supremacy – sadness, grief, anger, frustration, love, pain. It was in that moment – February 20, 1970 – that a six-year-old boy came home from first grade class and had to grasp that a horrible car accident injured three of his siblings – and that he was only spared because he went to school that day.

I hated that my family rallied around my grandfather at the time, and would later chastise me and criticize me for even suggesting it was his fault for driving under the influence and driving on poor weather conditions. That it minimized my personal grief. I hated it.

A report from Albany Med, 40 years later

I hated that Allen – who would pass away a few months after the accident – was buried in St. Agnes Cemetery without even the courtesy of a headstone or a marker. In fact, it wasn’t until 2010 – FORTY YEARS after his passing – that a bronze marker was finally installed on his burial site.

Keeping a 40-year-old promise

Trust me, I dealt with a ton of survivor’s guilt over his passing. All the lessons about heaven and prayer and God has a plan for everything were just hollow words. A child died for nothing.

I couldn’t let my brother’s existence drift away like that.

So I created my own personal holiday. Allen’s Day. Celebrated every February 20. A day when one goes above and beyond in terms of kindness and respect.

Our time on this world is not guaranteed. Not one day beyond what our bodies can handle. Allen never got that chance to graduate and marry and procreate and grow old.

And even though I’ve done all those things … he should have been with me all the way.

But this day can at least make his existence a blessing.

Whatever your day is today … please do a kindness to someone. Treat it like a day of charity. Or a day of atonement, where you ask someone to forgive you for something you did ages ago.

This is what we should be.

This is what we can be.

This is what Allen could have been.

A moment for Allen

And in this, we will remember the good that can exist in all of us.