Unbreak My Heart(48)

It hurts knowing that, but not like I thought it would. Because with knowing comes understanding. It was never about the pills. It was never about tea or treatments.

I stand and hold out my hand to shake Takahashi’s. He wasn’t Ian’s quest for a miracle after all. He wasn’t a voodoo doctor in the least.

He was my brother’s great hope for a peaceful death, after living a short, but rich and beautiful life.

A life filled with love, with family, with hope.

A last year that unfolded like a dream.

A love he carried in his heart to the other side.





30





Andrew



I’m outside, back on the street I walked down only an hour ago in the Asakusa district of the city.

Asakusa is not Shibuya. It is not neon and lights and flashes. It is subtler—bamboo and temples, kimonos and sandals. It is a long shopping alley with open-fronted stores and carts and people weaving in and out as they hunt for seaweed and fish, for rice crackers and biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate.

I walk along the shopping arcade, part of the flow—the shopkeepers and the workers, the families walking through, and the tourists scooping up folded fans and miniature red cat statues.

Fans.

Statues.

Chocolate-dipped biscuits.

This was where Ian went with the woman he loved.

An older Japanese woman with graying hair and lines around her eyes nods at me as I walk past the Pocky display. I buy some and eat one as I continue on past all this beautiful, wonderful, amazing life.

Toward the very end, Ian was lying on the living room couch under a blanket, petting Sandy, and he said, “Obviously, I’m not going to make it to the All-Star Break this year. But do me a favor? Don’t watch the All-Star game. Those games suck.”

I’d laughed because it was easier than the alternative.

He rapped his knuckles on my chest. “But if we get back to the World Series, you should go.”

I nodded. “I’ll do everything I can to get tickets.”

His eyes turned serious. “Go, because life is short. Make it count. Don’t have any regrets. I don’t.”

My brother’s life was all it could be. He made sure of that.

Because there is no magic cure. There is no secret remedy, no ancient tincture that could have saved him, that could save anyone. The magic is in how he lived, how he died, and the way he loved. Even in his death, he’s shown me how to live and how to love.

That’s the secret. That’s the cure.

I want everything this life has to offer.

I stop for a second and look around at all the shops and stores and stalls. At all the people going about their days, at all the moments they’re living.

This is what I want.

I want to live every moment. I want to feel everything. I want to love one woman.

Together is what I want.

But there’s something I still have to do.

The answers have been around me all along—how to live a rich and beautiful life. Ian didn’t leave the dossier with the decoder for me, but I found it anyway and the clues turned out to be a true treasure map.

Now I know precisely how to reach the X that marks the spot.

The clues are in the letters, the cards, and the mementos. The path is their meaning. At the end, the words he kept close, and the words he shared, were words of love—the letter from my sister, the note from my parents, the concert stub.

Be a man of actions.

Sometimes words are actions.

I pop into one of the stalls selling paper and buy several sheets and envelopes along with a pen.

I find a table, and I sit and I write.

An hour later, I’ve said things that need to be said to people who need to hear them. I make some phone calls and make some necessary arrangements. Then I seal up seven different envelopes, head to FedEx, and send them on their way.

One I keep with me.



*

Dear Kate,





Sometimes we don’t say often enough that we’re thankful. I certainly haven’t said it often enough to you.





You’ve helped me in so many ways the last few months, most of all by calling me on my crap. I know it felt like I wasn’t ready to hear it. At times, I probably wasn’t, but I promise you got through to me. I promise, too, that I’m still grateful for you not giving up. Thank you for all you did.





P.S. Next time you go to Animal House, there will be a gift for you.





Love,

Andrew





*

Hey Jeremy,





Are you shocked I’m writing a letter? Me too.





But some things need to be written down, not texted, and not phoned in.





That party you threw for me in June? I was kind of a dick about it. Well, I wasn’t kind of a dick. I was a dick.

You were trying to help, and I appreciate it, even though I did a shitty job showing it at the time. I’m trying to show it now—thank you.





Also, the fact that you took care of my dog is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. I kid you not. It’s buddy movie–worthy.