The Pilgrim will always be my friend
“Ya can’t fight the snow.”
One of the things I dread about living so far away from home is opening the email that tells me someone close has died.
What's even worse is not being able to return for a funeral I'd very much like to attend. Such was the case last week when Mom broke the news of Andy Drane's passing at a spry 52.
Obituaries refer to him as Andrew and acquaintances called him Andy. But for those who knew and loved him, he will forever be the "Pilgrim."
We first met when I was around 15 years old. He was Andy then. The first thing I noticed, aside from the incredible bounce in his step, was the fact that he spoke to me like I was a man. That's a quality that young people really appreciate, yet very few adults exhibit.
Come to find out, that was how Pilgrim treated everyone with respect.
Another great characteristic he had was his willingness to help people. If you want to find out who your true friends really are, tell them you're moving and you need a hand. While the pretenders will be conveniently "busy," Andy was always the first on the scene and usually the last to leave. He'd fight you for the heavy end and never come in with a free hand in fact, a couch cushion was usually pinned with a sinewy elbow. I've seen him hanging pictures at midnight.
Recently, I learned he also used to help out my late grandmother with a secret little habit she was trying not to quit. Pilgrim, on the premise of doing some maintenance work, would stealthily bounce over with a pack of cigarettes for a closet smoker he thought all too well of. It was the type of guy he was.
Yet his most endearing quality, as far as I'm concerned, was his perpetual optimism. Whether the chips were up or down, you always got the same Andy. It's nice to know consistent personalities, but Pilgrim was always a breath of fresh air. For me, he had a calming effect.
One time, when a much needed "pogey" check was delayed by a freak snowstorm, he could tell I was pretty down. "Nothin' ya can do about it…ya can't fight the snow, Pilgrim," he sympathetically chuckled. "Ya can't fight the snow."
I thought about it. He was right.
While memories are great, the death of someone so young is a hard pill for anyone to swallow. I choked a tough one down when my father passed, but there are lessons to be learned here. Don't take life for granted because every day is such a pleasure to be a part of.
And that was how Andy lived.
His death has temporarily knocked us out of our complacency, but time will bring us back, it'll erase the pain it always does. But there's one thing time can never erase, and that's the Pilgrim.
Stay tuned…
Collina native Michael Baxter teaches English in Tokyo, Japan and invites both criticism and support to outsidethebax@gmail.com
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