Dear Andrew

HI Andy!

Happy 31st! Ten and a half years later, a birthday without you is still pretty hard to handle. I've done my best in life to not think too much about what could have been, it would be a waste of energy, but especially on your birthday, I can't help it. I spent so much of my childhood thinking about what would have been if you weren't in a wheelchair, or what it would be like if we were able to talk or able to see me. These past couple of years, and this year especially, I've just been thinking about what it would be like if you were here. Just here in the perfect way you were made and I got to know. Yes, Dan and I live on the other side of the country, but I know both of us would probably jump on a plane right now just to get the chance to visit you and sit with you with the Packer blanket I made for you draped over you. I'm under that same blanket now, your name still etched in the corner of it so the other people at Central Center wouldn't get too jealous and try to take it. We'd also probably walk around outside, it would probably be pretty cold, but we'd love to go on those big swings that some other of your friends were able to sit in just to feel the breeze and movement. I'm sorry I never got to be on one of those swings with you. Honestly, and this is the craziest part, Andrew, we'd probably play you a rap album that Dan just made for his 30th birthday. It's the most insane thing in the whole world and you'd love it. Would probably make you turn your head over and over again. 

Mom got a tattoo with your name. A TATTOO, ANDREW. But it's perfect and I hope as many people see your name and ask her about you as possible. Your story is hard to hear, but I'm glad more people might get to hear it. It's the best part about any of us. 

Look, I'm very, very thankful you are not suffering and that I got to spend 15 of your birthdays on the same planet as you, but I'm really sad about these 10 that I've had to think about what might have been. Thank you for making me the person that thinks about what might have been exactly as you were rather than the person that spends her life thinking about what might have been if things started differently for you. I'm still so unbelievably proud every day to have you as my brother and I know Dan is, too. For years I've said that I hope you're running around and jumping up there in heaven with Millie, but honestly, I just hope you're happy. If you're still in that chair, arms up next to your face, the way I always knew you, then that's fine, too. Because your life was hard, but perfect and valuable and incredibly important to me, so I hope even if that's true, you're absolutely happy. 

Love you forever, brother. 

Twenty-Six

I turned twenty-six this year. I’m reminded by just about everyone I know - my friends who are older than me, my coworkers who find my work ethic fascinating, and the world around me - that I’m still young. Still a lot of life to live and still a lot of life I haven’t lived yet.

There have been two big ages in my life that kind of knocked me back on my heels: first, when I turned twenty. Andrew, who would have been thirty-two today, was twenty when he died. I was fifteen at the time and remember thinking he looked older than twenty. Twenty was basically an adult, right? Twenty came and I realized I would outlive my brother’s age and I also realized I was definitely not “basically an adult”. The second age is this one right now: twenty-six. You see, my Mom, the woman who’s survived many, many tragedies along side my Dad, who’s had his own many, many tragedies, was twenty-six when Andrew was born. She was reminded, probably like I am now, that she was so young.

I think about what I would be like as a mother now, at twenty-six, but, more importantly, I think about what kind of person I am at twenty-six. I’m still selfish and self-centered and really impatient when I find things that I don’t want to do, or are not done the way I want, or aren’t part of the plan I’ve set up for myself. I’m also empathetic and funny and a really hard worker and sometimes I think I’m doing okay when I think about that.

But tragedies, like my Mom wrote about here don’t care how old you are. They don’t care if you’re any of the good things you think about yourself, or even any of the bad things. They’re random and undeserved and completely and totally out of anyone’s control. I was fifteen when I went through my first real tragedy: Andrew died when he was twenty. And I forgot for awhile there, that I would turn the age he was, I’d turn the age my parent’s were when they went through their first tragedy, and I’ll keep turning ages until I’ve turned all the ages I’m supposed to.

Andy didn’t get that many birthdays. He got twenty and then they stopped. He wasn’t supposed to get that many at all, but thank god he did. We’d go visit him and bring him presents and open them with him and I really, really hope he liked that. Everyone wants to feel special on their birthday. And I know on that first birthday, which was really hard for everyone, I know he got to see all of the good things about my parents - their humor and resilience and pure selflessness that I know kept that little baby alive long enough for me to meet him and get to spend fifteen years with him.

Andrew: happy birthday. I remember all your good things, too: your gentle nature, your beauty, and the way you inspired every person around you. You had none of the bad things. I hope you’re somewhere you’re getting to turn more ages and meet people and give them what you gave me: a brother and a friend and a child to my parents who were “so young” when they had you.

Love you.