Understanding

"...you can love completely without complete understanding."
-Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

Every time I saw Andy was a relief. Each meeting was an answer to prayer and a thousand questions, and each meeting raised a thousand more questions. But it was always cool. You felt cooler when you were with Andy. You talked cooler. You got the impression that you were part of something big and important. That was his level. Big and important and cool. I don't know how he did it, but maybe that was the hardest part of knowing him. Every parting left me wondering if I would ever feel that cool again.

I remember a desert camping trip with Andy and two of my uncles. He and I took a day hike together and shared a canteen until it was gone and we were competely dry. We had no destination or particular purpose, but we didn't need it. What we were doing was big and important and tough and cool and hilarious and utterly useless to anyone but us. In many ways I'm still living off that hike when I had him to myself and I could talk and be as cool as I wanted because Andy was there.

A couple of years later, when I finally saw him again, that hike was the first thing he wanted to talk about. Now for some reason, it's the only thing I want to write about.

The picture here is from that camping trip in a place I believe is Andy's heaven, where he's been given the task of teaching the angels to sing.

-TMF