Anniversary

Today marked a year since my brother-in-law Shawn passed away. His mother Enid came up from Santa Fe, NM to commemorate, and my mother drove from Atlanta. We met up for a quiet lunch in Charlottesville then caravaned to Panorama Farms in Earlysville to let off balloons.

The balloons were my sister’s idea. Their daughter Harper, my niece, was only 16 months when Shawn passed away. As far as she can remember, he has always lived “in the clouds and stars”. Today, she seemed to understand the balloon ritual, and recognized Shawn’s name with enthusiasm whenever it was mentioned. When it was her turn, she picked the last balloon from the bunch, insisting on purple. Enid read from a bit of text she’d brought, a nice quote about letting go of things. The sky was strange and intense, equally blue and silver. We took a walk around the farm before it got too cold. I brought a soccer ball for distraction, but everyone was reluctant to kick it.

When Harper gets old enough, I’ll want to tell her more about Shawn. He was multi-talented to say the least. Harper should know how much she changed him during the brief time they had together, even when things were looking grim. I’m impatient; I’d like to tell her all these things now so her memories do not fade too quickly. I’m looking forward to showing her the graphic design he did back in the relative ‘old days’ of 2000-2004, a few years before he was diagnosed. Design of all kind came to him naturally. It was the foundation for his role as Art Director at the design firm he started with my sister in ‘98, a place which employed me when I had nowhere else to go.

These days I feel I owe it to him to help the firm maintain direction. To Harper I’ll owe an explanation one day for how things can come together and come apart before anyone can grasp what’s happened. I worry none of it will make sense to her. At least we have saved a mountain of Shawn’s pictures, writings, his band’s CDs, his designs, his paintings, and his carefully-crafted emails. From those things, she’ll have to put the rest of the picture together for herself.

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