Make Hay While the Sun Shines

My brother died too young in a gruesome accident. It was sudden, as accidents tend to be. He was gone in a flash. Getting the call myself and calling my mother to break the news are in tight competition for the worst moment of my life.

Andrew and I were like twins, though he was older than I was. We practically shared a brain- and so much communication between us was nonverbal. He never seemed to have much, but he was endlessly generous. He was supportive of my dreams and could quickly whip-up a plan b when things fell apart. He'd have me crying with laughter and treat me to lavish dinners when I was in town. We would daydream about our futures and fantasize about buying our mom a house. He was as good a brother and friend as I could ever have wished for.

After he died, I received countless messages from people telling me stories about him that I'd never heard before but further proved his goodness to me.

Here are only a few of those stories: One night at the restaurant he managed, a party ran up a giant bill and left without tipping the server. Andrew reached into his own pocket to give that server all the cash he could for an appropriate tip.

Andrew found out that one of his friends was terribly distraught. Her wedding was in five days, yet no one had thrown her a bridal shower or even a bachelorette party. So in just two days, Andrew threw a fancy party for her at the restaurant he managed. He threw it after regular hours and paid for the cooks and the entire bill himself.

A family friend had passed away unexpectedly, leaving behind a wife and four children- the youngest being only a year old. Andrew would bring games over to their house on weekends and play with those kids.

Thus was his gentle heart.

At one point, he was head over heels in love with a girl and wanted to get married. She was in a lot of debt, and Andrew saved up his money to pay off her debt so they could start a life free and clear of burdens. It was a staggering $10,000- and as unbelievable as it is for a 22-year-old to have accomplished this, he did. They broke up before too long, but Andrew never regretted working off her debt. His thoughts on it were simple. "It's just money. I can always work for more."

And work he did. Everyday- very hard- all the time.

Andrew loved to express himself in all ways possible- even if he was no good at it. He loved writing more than anything and drew inspiration from the beat poets. He would write and sketch and paint tiny things in notebooks. Notebooks filled with half-written stories and probably hundreds of poems and sketches. Interesting watercolor works and collages on little pages. As a sensitive person living in a male body in this toxic world- these pages were his freedom.

I never wanted to go through his things alone. I never wanted to sift through his life and decide what can go and what can stay. If I could have, I would have kept all of it to remain in his apartment- like a museum to this amazing brother and friend I loved so dearly. However, this was the impossible position I found myself in.

Recently, I had started a new corporate job and miraculously had family leave available to me. I was lucky enough to fly into Washington right away. It started snowing the night he died and never stopped. By the time I landed, the roads were so bad that the next day the governor declared a state of emergency, grounded all flights, and closed the highways. It had snowed one hundred inches within the next twenty-four hours alone. With no flights coming in and no one able to drive over the mountain pass, I was the only family member in town.

So there I was- alone with his things and not him. There was his phone charger on the couch. Two steaks were soaking in some marinade in the fridge, waiting for him to come home. The whole apartment smelled like him- mixed with his stale, bachelor laundry. I couldn't bear the thought of washing his clothes. The sweat and smell were his. I never wanted to forget that smell, as much as I used to hate it. Suddenly I was afraid to lose it.

Even though I felt like a zombie, I got his apartment sorted that week. I was able to give away most things to goodwill. There was a lot, however, that I was shipping home to myself. I was avoiding having to make any more painful decisions. As I was boxing items to ship, I ran across one of his infamous notebooks when my heart jumped. They were all the same type- these little black moleskin notebooks. He thought they made even scribbles feel more interesting- and more intriguing to someone watching. Almost all the pages were full. Some pages had to-do lists on them while other pages read like a diary. Some had his beautiful poems, while others had his weird little sketches. I noticed he kept sketching sunlit skies- pastoral scenes. It was a running theme for him, I guess. The best thing about these notebooks is that I got a glimpse into his daily thoughts or his most beautiful hopes and wishes. I got to understand what he would never tell me, even though we were quite close. Each notebook was like a snapshot of his soul. There were at least 20 of these priceless notebooks- and I started reading through all of them. I spent the rest of the day flipping their pages, wishing I could ask him questions about so many things scribbled inside.

In one notebook, the last page had a sticker on a weird pocket-like page. It was a Dandy Warhols sticker. He had seen them in Prague, and I remember him pushing them on me and wanting me to like them as much as he did. The sticker, which drew my eye, brought attention to the pocket. I could tell there was something in it- so I reached in to empty its secrets. What I found was a Violent Femmes ticket stub and a well-folded piece of paper.

When I unfolded the paper, it was a money order. It was for $1,000- and not made out to anyone. I knew my brother could sock away money, but I never thought Andrew would be so clueless as to misplace a thousand bucks. On the back of the money order, written in pencil, were the words DON'T SPEND. Well, damn- now I'm baffled. Was this his weird way of saving money? Somewhere inconvenient where he wouldn't spend it on a whim?

I realized I had not looked at the pockets in the other notebooks- so I went back through them and searched for any contents. I found 19 other money orders, 20 in total. All of the money orders were for a thousand dollars with DON'T SPEND written on them, and all of them were blank. I felt a pressure on my heart, let out a long deep breath, and sobbed.

$20,000.

Andrew- was this your way of reaching into your pocket and giving me whatever you can?

Just then, I caught a whiff of wonderfully stale, bachelor laundry.