The Aftermath

 My brother's death has been a wake-up call in several aspects of my life.  It has been challenging to deal with, but I'm deciding to view it as a positive, powerful catalyst to improve myself.  Andy stayed true to himself throughout his life.  I am proud of him for that.  He was Andy- with no apologies or explanations.  Mistakes, missteps, disasters, and triumphs.  He was one of a kind.

I was born in the height of summer.  Andy was born in the dead of winter.  There was always a yin-yang to us.  I am only now realizing how alike we were on our journeys.  He was a free spirit, adventurous and a bit wild, especially as a kid.  I walked the straight and narrow, never wandering off the assigned path.  As we aged, his acceptance of risk seemed to shrink a bit.  He lived in a little town in Tennessee, seemingly content with his life, or perhaps afraid of change.  Surprisingly, my sense of adventure has grown and grown.  I am absolutely willing to try almost anything at least once, and often have.

I love Humans of New York on Facebook.  A recent one is from a guy who said "I'm rebooting my life entirely, again. It's time for Andrew 5.0."  Coincidence that his name is my brother's?  Nope.  Not at all.  I'm picking up what you're putting down, Universe, even if Andy won't get the chance to reboot his own life.

After my cousin's wife (basically my age) died unexpectedly last summer, I went on a frenzy and did Kon-Mari to almost my entire house.  I panicked that Jeff would have to sort through and sell off or give away my craploads of crap when I croak.  Dad wasn't able to salvage much from Andy's apartment.  But just that small pile of stuff has sent me into a frenzy to clean out ALL the crap from my life again.   I'm not a "own 100 things" type of person, but I certainly see the appeal.  Let's face it, I own more fabric than some small fabric stores, so owning 100 things is hilariously unrealistic!

But Dad did salvage a few things, and one of those was a box of Wisdom Cards by Louise L Hay.  On my last Kon-Mari I donated about 20 self-help books to the library (I've been trying to figure myself out for over a decade -haha- I'm obviously a masterpiece in progress!).  A few of them were her books.  For some reason, she's back in my life.  I took the Wisdom Cards and have been reading them daily.  I don't know if someone gave the cards to Andy or if he bought them himself.  I don't know if he ever read them or even if they helped him.  But they are helping me tremendously right now, so I am grateful.  I don't know what I believe as far as the afterlife or spirits are concerned, but I am choosing to think that perhaps, through the life struggles we both endured, he is somehow helping me now in ways I can't understand.

Oddly, a retired psychologist ended up being my Uber driver home from the airport and the guy checking me out at Whole Foods today (haha! At the register, not my ass!) was oddly in tune with my emotions and struck up a conversation about violin, as his mother used to play and he plays guitar.  I'm trying to absorb all the signs.  They're definitely there.

Andy's favorite band (other than the Beatles) was Lucero.  So Dad burned all the albums for me and I've been listening to them for the past few days.  A little Lucero goes a long way!  But it's SO Andy.  Holy shit.  The lyrics, the music, the vocals.  I've decided that band from Memphis will be in the background as I clean out the clutter.  Again.

I said a few words about Andy in the church I grew up in and for some reason was transported back to my High School days.  I was on the Forensics Team.  Speech, debate, drama.  I was on the drama side.  My main competitor one year was Valerie on my own team.  She was reading The Lady of Shalott and I was reading The Wreck of the Hesperus.  Both extraordinarily tragic poems and Valerie outdid me often.  I eventually gave up on the drama side and entered After Dinner Speaking.  I wrote a speech in one afternoon on notebook paper.  I hardly edited it and I won First in the State.  Booyah, bitches.  Cuz that's how it's done.

But I started thinking about those 2 poems.  Am I the girl who falls madly in love with a dude who doesn't know she exists and then she dies trying to get to him?  Hell to the no.  I'm definitely the idiot on the sea who thinks I can weather a crazy storm.... but to the contrary I haven't found myself lashed and frozen to any masts just yet ;-)  I've been navigating some rough seas for a while, but a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, right?

Keep that in mind when your GPS goes out and you find yourself navigating with a sextant through the overgrown paths of life (you should be on the less traveled paths anyway, my friends....).  Don't be afraid of the darkness.  Flick a match into some of the crap on the side of the road and smile (or laugh) while it burns and lights your way ;-)

Nope.  She ain't Lucero.  But she's badass!  PS.  She's saying "They said I'm too loud for this town" ;-)