Andrew

Andrew sees life as an adventure. Not as a metaphor, but as a real-life, get out in the world adventure.

Andrew is a wanderer. From the age of two he would simply take off from the house if we weren’t diligent. He wouldn’t respond even if he was within earshot, which made it particularly difficult to find him. We asked him once where he was going. He replied, “To find the teenage mutant ninja turtles’ house.”

Once we had to call 911 and get the police involved. We knew he was gone because our dog Teddy was also missing. Thankfully, they had just gotten a call from somebody who had found a child wandering down Chulio road. Chulio is a busy, winding two-lane road. It’s amazing we didn’t have Child and Family Services called on us.

Andrew kept his wanderlust into his teens. He would go on overnight skateboarding treks with his friends. When we took a Mediterranean cruise, he wanted to go into a city and just “get lost.” We were concerned. But one day we were in a Medieval walled city, and he told us he could just find one of the walls of the city and follow it to find his way back. So we allowed him to get lost in Turkey with strict instructions to make it back to the ship well before it sailed to the next port. He did.

Andrew loved to climb. Boulders and trees were his favorites. Once our friends P.J. and Stephanie couldn’t find him. They started to get worried, and then they heard a voice exclaim, “Wow, I can see EVERYTHING from here!” There he was, high in a tree.

When he grew older, he wanted to climb bigger things. We were in New Zealand, and he spied a mountain. He wanted to scramble to the top, and we were concerned. It had snowed on the top of the mountain the night before. I tried to dissuade him by telling him that it was probably private property. He was not dissuaded.

So we went into town and found a map of all the public lands. The mountain he wanted to climb was indeed private, so he chose a different mountain. I asked the park ranger whether he was permitted to climb it, hoping he would say ‘no’. He said, “Well… you could… but you’d have to pay if we had to come rescue you.”

Jamie and I foolishly gave in, and Andrew left with his brother-in-law, some food and water, too little warm weather gear, and a cell phone. It was already mid-afternoon, and if something went wrong, darkness would soon be upon them. I really don’t know what we were thinking.

Jamie and I both got alarmed when the person who dropped them off told us that there was no cell phone service there. We worried for several hours, and when darkness fell we still hadn’t heard from them.

Finally we found out they were safe. They had climbed the mountain without issue, but they couldn’t get back down the way they came. Once they got back to the main road, it was dark with no cell phone service. So they walked down the road until they managed to get a faint signal.

They called a taxi. The taxi service wanted them to agree to pay cash; otherwise they wouldn’t come get them. They didn’t have cash. But they managed to convince them to come anyway.

And that’s the story of how Andrew and Matt almost died.

Andrew was a frequent visitor to the emergency room as a child. (Warning, graphic content over the next seven paragraphs!) When he was two, he lost several front teeth and split his lip up to his nose. When he was four, he had a full fish tank break over his head, requiring stitches to his face just barely under his eye. When he was six, he cut the tip of his finger almost completely off.

Once Andrew swallowed an unknown quantity of Tylenol. Jamie took him to the ER. They had to put a stomach tube in, and so the nurse asked if he wanted to play a game. They strapped him to a papoose board and put the tube in. When it was over, he pitifully mourned, “Game Over.” Jamie and I resolved to never allow a medical professional to lie to him again.

Once he cut his scalp and blood soaked the back of his shirt. By this time Jamie was accustomed to his injuries. She was most concerned that Andrew not get blood on the carpet.

Andrew got used to making light of injuries because he was afraid he’d have to go to the ER. So Jamie would look at an injury and simply ask Andrew if he wanted to go to the emergency room. Andrew would say ‘no’ and that was that.

As a teen, Andrew loved to skateboard with his friends and would come home with skin missing. I told him he could lose as much skin as he wanted so long as he didn’t break anything. He lasted for more than a year before he broke a bone in his wrist.

When he got older, he had three incidents of spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung). It was spontaneous because there was no apparent cause. The doctor said that it was common among “skinny white boys” and that he should eventually grow out of it.

The second time it happened they put in a chest tube while he was fully conscious. I arrived just too late to see them do it. Andrew was white and Jamie wasn’t looking much better. After it healed, I called it his “Jesus scar.”

Andrew idolized his sister Anna. When he was in the second or third grade, he became upset because he wasn’t getting the grades Anna got. He called Anna his ‘role model’ and was distraught. We assured him that he had his own unique strengths. We said that he was kind and a good friend. It’s just that they didn’t give out grades for those strengths. He must have taken it to heart because his kindness and loyalty are still some of Andrew’s most remarkable traits.

Andrew had a group of friends he’d run with, especially Brennan and Ted. He still runs with them as often as he can. They’ve been friends since grade school at St. Mary’s. They are—and always will be—his band of brothers.

They loved to take off from home, just like in Andrew’s ninja turtles days, and see how far they could walk.

Andrew became a Japanophile after his sisters were turned on to manga and anime by their “cousin” Rachel. He took trips to Japan, studied in Japan for six months, and was only a thesis away from majoring in Japan Studies at Furman University. He and I toured the Japanese countryside and climbed Mount Fuji. As I stated on the home page, we took a pilgrimage to the 32 Buddhist temples in Chichibu.

Because of this he met his beloved Makiko.

Andrew was living in the Japanese language house on campus. It was a simple apartment where only Japanese was supposed to be spoken. (I don’t believe this rule was followed very often.) Makiko was the language house assistant teacher. She was in charge helping the language house residents learn Japanese. She would post vocabulary words on the wall, have them watch movies in Japanese, help them shop for and cook Japanese meals, and more.

Andrew “liked” Makiko, but kept it a secret until Makiko was no longer his teacher. This was the end of his sophomore year. Because he waited until Makiko was no longer employed, she had to return to Japan. So they dated by FaceTime. Then they got to see each other when he studied in Japan.

They decided to get engaged his senior year and started to work on getting her back into the country under a fiancé visa. Within a week after Andrew’s graduation, she was approved to return to the U.S.

We had a simple ceremony in our back yard in order to make it legal, thinking that a more elaborate ceremony might happen in Hawaii with her parents present. Brennan officiated. Today they seem to be content with the ceremony they had. They recently took a trip to Japan and their parents had a reception to publically announce their union in Japan.

Makiko and Andrew are both kind and gentle, sensitive and full of spirit. They will eventually live in Japan, at least for a while. The day they leave will be a sad one for Jamie and me. We’re already saving up frequent flyer miles.

Andrew got a job in Atlanta as a web developer. I never pushed him into my own profession. He taught himself to program by looking it up on the web. It appears he naturally shared my passion for computer programming. He was always naturally gifted in math. In grade school, he once finished his test before the teacher finished giving instructions.

He is less proficient in reading. This might have something to do with his ADHD, but perhaps not. Despite his struggles, he’s always faced them with courage, determination, and resourcefulness.

Andrew is future-oriented and financially responsible. He’s already saving for retirement.

Andrew is a model for how to love. He truly cares about the people he comes in contact with. He and Makiko became vegan because they care about the environment.

People can be at peace around Andrew. He is humble, quiet, and gracious.

Andrew has a moral center and he won’t compromise his own integrity. He recently turned down the opportunity to sign up for an inexpensive alternative to health insurance because it required him to sign a statement that didn’t jibe with his personal beliefs.

Andrew helps me to dream. One day I’ll climb another mountain with him. One day we’ll take another pilgrimage in Japan. Maybe I’ll climb a tree again, like I did when I was a child. Maybe I’ll even get lost with him in some Medieval city.

Yes. One day soon.

Andrew, I love you and I’m proud of the man you have become.