Andrew Engel
1961-2022
Andy woke at 5 am every day, Owen shaking his nub tail with excitement when he stirred. Rising, Micah, Gus and Owen would all follow down the stairs to watch him make that first pot of coffee, then bring a cup up for Pat. Stepping outside with the dogs into the cool darkness of predawn, Andy would just breathe it in, and find a moment of quiet, lovely peace at the start of a new day. For Andy got on with life. More than anyone, he understood that nobody was here to save us. Everything was up to us; and he chose his Everything better than anyone I know. Every morning, getting up more likely around 6 or 7, I wondered what Andy was up to. I'd often already find his comments on the day ahead in an email, among thoughts from the other Assholes. And thereby I could step outside my door, and breathe the day in.
Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!
-- Michel de Montaigne
Andy and I worked together, talked together, and laughed together for over 25 years. For the last fifteen, as part of a group of six, we emailed daily. He became a true friend, and our friendship grew with time. I feel his loss as if both fire and water had gone out of the world.
Andy gave so much, to so many. That his heart gave out on a random day is a wretched, unacceptable injustice. His family, his community, his profession, his friends, each feel a gaping hole of absence that is profound, and profoundly different, for each.
This is an essay on the loss of a true friend.
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Smiling wryly at his own wit, my 11th grade English teacher ended each class at the bell commenting that "Our discussions do not end. They stop temporarily. See you tomorrow." I often wanted to smack him for the refrigerator-magnet wisdom. At the same time, I remembered the comment, and learned to notice the difference between something that stops, and something that ends.
Since Andy died, the most common painful thought has been precisely this difference. I see an unintentionally ironic advertisement on a train platform, and want to share it with him, and make him laugh. I complete a project in the shop and want to send him a picture of it, hear his thoughts on it. I want to ask his advice on a relationship matter. But each of these conversations has ended. Worse, when I remember looking forward to a planned visit, I realize that I can no longer look forward. That pleasant memory has become a liar, a ghost of things that will not happen. I feel betrayed by my own thoughts.
Did I tell him, as well as I could ever find the words, how much I appreciated his friendship? I no longer have the opportunity of completing that conversation. Was I fully the friend that I wanted to be? Our friendship is no longer open to amendment, or coda. Our friendship is complete when I had hoped of building more with it. I fight against this end by having conversations in my head. We sit at a bar over pints. I conjure his smile and laugh. I conjure his pauses, his puns.
He will be with me in my thoughts.
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Agency. Choice. Who we are, and what we become. The unity of rights and responsibilities. Kindness. Gratitude. Respect. Trust. We discussed and distilled so much of life, over so many years, the process deepening our capacity to live.
He and Pat modeled a thriving marriage, a major ingredient in making possible my second, thriving, marriage.
Honest and vulnerable conversations shape who we are. When we listen, we choose, and we change. The ephemeral byproduct of such conversation is a debt to identity. When we can say I would not be fully who I am without my friend, we have a true friend. Andy was my true friend, and I am diminished by his loss.
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Last Fall, at his 60th birthday, Pat hired a bagpiper. Andy was pleased as punch. Today, I asked the same bagpiper to come back for his memorial gathering. I asked him to play Amazing Grace.
We will toast his life with uisge beatha, or whisky, around a bonfire, and mourn the loss of water and fire in the lives of all his friends.
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