Andy....

It's strange to look at this name in the post title.

It was my brother's name. He was 28 years old, and he died on this date five years ago. He would have been 33 now. So strange. So damn awful. I don't even like to think about it most of the time.

These types of "anniversaries" are things I can do without, and yet here it is. For the past couple of years I've somehow sailed past October 17th without giving myself over to mulling over the event of his death. I think about my brother everyday, and I usually don't subscribe to the idea that I should choose to feel rotten on this date if I am not already predisposed to doing so. It's almost like feeling bad for the sake of it.

But today, on this date, on this anniversary, I do feel it's edge more than I did in the previous years. I know it is because of the birth of my sons. With their births I am reminded of what has come before, and what will never be. The absence of this person, my sibling, is pointedly apparent this year.

Andy is gone, and I sometimes have moments where I think "Was he ever really here?". It feels like something that happened to someone else, and I am only an observer. Passively absent from it all.

But then, I have also had moments where the light will catch one of my son's face in such a way, or the angle is just so, and I will see my brother in that face. Looking back at me from some place I never knew existed, but full of joy that it does.

So yes, this year I feel the loss more than I have done before, but it is only because I now see that he lives on in some way through my own children.

Andy would like that. I just wish I could tell him, or better yet, let him see it for himself.

This is not to be though, and so I must remain content with the reminders.