I have a crippling social phobia but somehow I manage to work and make a living (probably because a job interview in the labour field doesn't discriminate ones social abilities. My girlfriend does most of the talking to anybody for me. When somebody talks to me when we are out in public I usually freeze up and she answers for me. Alone in public I am afraid and never know what to say. I plan to marry her some day because I truly can't live without her and I love her to death. (But that's not what this is about.)

Since the day our nephew died I've almost felt as if I could have prevented it if it wasn't for the above-mentioned demons in my life. My brother had an affair with a mutual friend of him and his girlfriend and then pushed her away. She moved far away with their son(our nephew). Not long after my nephew's life was taken by a garage sale play pen that had been collecting dust in somebodies garage when it received a product recall that was intended to prevent the ultimate tragedy.

Immediately it sent a chilling reminder of a day when I was looking for something in the spare bedroom of my dad's house(where he lives and where I was staying because I commuted to work out of town and my car had broken down.) He and the mutual friend sat looking at what was presumably funny videos on her laptop. His girlfriend was away in a different room and they sat so close to each other in a way that just wasn't right for the situation.

I thought to myself that if ever, now is the time to be a grown man and brother and stop being such a panzy and actually talk to him about this before it could go too far and rip apart a blossoming family. (2 infact, the other woman was currently seperated from her own husband and child). But the thought of trying to talk to him drove chills and frustration down my spine. (I tried to talk through his drug problem once but that never yielded anything, although he grew out of it before he became a father thankfully.) I was also quite obviously known as a serial womanizer by my family, so who would I have been to talk about having an affair?)

A couple of months later they all went on a road trip where he dropped the bomb on her, she moved back to her family with my nephew. They were supposed to be back in September to visit on his first birthday... But the tragedy happened in August... I also feel bad because my social ineptitude made me a less involved uncle than I could have been...

A lot of family on both sides blamed her(Their mutual friend) for the tragedy but I wouldn't hear it because if I could have been more of a man, more of a brother and less of a coward I could have stopped the entire chain of events from unfolding.

I blamed myself since the wretched night I received the news and I've hated myself for not being as big a part of my nephews life as I wanted to be. now he's gone.

I just wish I could have manned up and spoken like any normal human being in the most fated of hours. I've never shared these thoughts with anybody. I know what they will say. "there's nothing you could have said or done" "it's not your fault". But I was THERE right where this tainted branch came out of the tree. Nobody could have said ANYTHING when they moved away, Nobody could have said ANYTHING when he dropped the bomb. Nobody could have said ANYTHING when they had the affair. Somebody wiser and more experienced in life could have said something had they seen him starting to get starry eyed for her. I was just that, the only witness, the only person there at the only time that something could have been said and I just froze up and pretended like nothing had ever happened.

I know some of my family still secretly blame her for the tragedy but they don't know what I know.

That is how I could have saved a life.