When my brother died, the Oxford University flew its flag at half-mast. My ex-wife refused to visit the chapel of rest, not for a cruel reason, but because she held her last memory of him, as a beautiful image of us: shirtless and smiling, after a long day of working in the sun.

The day before he was found, he’d been to a house party. Going by the trace amounts of narcotics they found in the autopsy report, I imagine it was a banger. At his funeral, a young girl told me how they met that night.

As she was leaving the party, he was leaving too. There was a heavy rain, and she stood under the porch, hoping to wait it out. One eccentricity of his was that he tried to always carry an umbrella with him. Honestly, I think he wanted a cane but needed a practical reason to justify having one; thus, umbrella.

The girl told me he asked her which way she was heading, and told her he was going that way, so they could share the umbrella, and keep dry. She said he was kind, funny, and a complete gentleman. He left the umbrella with her at her gate, watched her until she was indoors, and to her surprise, he walked back the way they came.

At the funeral, I told her he lived on the other side of town. She didn’t say a word or cry; she touched my arm and smiled. Every year, his friends hold a free music and poetry festival, and they all have stories like this. They all laugh and smile when they talk about him. They all have these stories that speak of his character.

While they remember him this way, my own memories are less perfect. Our childhood was difficult, and I wasn’t the best of brothers. I wish I had been. I tried harder in adulthood but still fell short of the mark. He was smarter than me. He was a better man than me, and it pains me to be the one who survived instead of him.

But it warms me that people still hold these memories of him. I believe that this life is it. It’s all we get. So, I am thankful that they each keep these fond memories of him. That they keep his memory alive and well in this fleeting world of ours is all I can ask.

Gone, but not forgotten.