My Angel.

It's the toasts and introductions that have me remembering what it was like to be around you, and how desperately I'm going to miss it for the rest of my life.

I still remember the exact place my head fell on your chest when you pulled me in for a lanky hug, and the way your hand towered next to mine in a high five. Memories this clear are easily surfaced when your usual companions meet for a celebration, a circle less one unit in diameter and certainly several inches shorter. This is one of the days where your presence would be guaranteed if you weren't watching from a view too high for a visit. All the boys I've spent my life under the watchful care of have grown from awkward boys to strong men, and it's hard to keep my eyes from blurring with the picture missing the usual companion of your smile.

I wish I could've introduced you to the friends I've gained since I saw you last; I wish you could've been in that line of intimidation. There are so few things I wouldn't give to see all the boys, all my brothers, together just one more time, one more drink, countless shared laughs. The silence that sits behind your place setting is impossible to ignore. It used to be that I could count on your handsome, silly self celebrating alongside the people that time has failed to separate. Now, you're cheering from beyond the stretch of our eyes, and it's hard not to be selfish, to wish you down from perfection to share in our human moment.

I know your pride far outweighs any of ours, that the size of the party you threw in his honor blew our full house away. We're imperfect where you're incomprehensibly tranquil, and left to miss the hell out of a life cut short when in fact, your new one blessedly begun after fewer trialed years than most. You beat us all; your famous smile our only foreshadowing. Your lucky new life, our lucky old memories.

In the face of it all, we smile because we have a fantastic person to live for, and cry because we wish we could continue to share our days with you. We'll continue growing with a pain that won't numb and an angel to protect us. The way I see it? You always strove to protect me, and everyone you loved, and you beat us to heaven so you could do just that. I bet you're playing guardian angel to everyone you called your family, by blood and by love alone.

We'll never understand, but God knew what he was doing, and I can rest easy knowing that my angel, our angel, is the strongest in the stars. <3

In honor of my big brother, Andrew Christian Landes.
1987-2009.