I Make Artwork However My Brother Makes Me an Artist

Sophie Madeline Dess

Share article

An excerpt from What You Make of Me by Sophie Madeline Dess

In two weeks they’ll be killing my brother and so I’m writing. I shouldn’t be. My brother would agree with me. Writing just isn’t my artwork.

I’m a painter, although I don’t count on you to have heard of me. When you noticed me at a café you wouldn’t know me. You’d haven’t any questions for me. Mushy pop could be thumping and also you’d be into it, and I’d solely be one other particular person sitting there plain‑confronted with blueberry eyes, my hair dyed some variation of oat or vanilla, shirt and pants bleeding collectively in a single wheaty monochrome.

If I had been to have a look at you as you stood there ordering, I’d marvel all of the questions one asks when confronted with a stranger, like who you sleep with, and the way, and what you consider earlier than mattress, and what it might be prefer to press my nostril into your scalp. However neither of us is on the café. I’m right here working, writing. My first solo present is developing at a small gallery referred to as Withheld. The Withheld individuals lately referred to as me to say they had been going to ship their assistant as much as my residence to have a look at all my work, in order that she may write some flap copy. Nice. However then I heard that this flap copy was supposed to explain precisely what my work “do” and what they “imply.” These explanations had been to be printed on a single sheet of paper. This sheet of paper—trifolded—could be referred to as the “catalog.” And this little catalog could be printed 100 occasions over and would sit stacked on a plastic tray on the entrance of the gallery, accessible to gallery‑goers upon entry or exit.

For days they’ve been sending her to my door, the assistant. For days she’s been knocking at midday and for days I’ve denied her entry. (Beneath another circumstances I’d have allowed her in. She is chatty and structurally excellent. Her face specifically, due to its modernity and slight resemblance to a kitchen, has an industrial magnificence. Huge cheeks. Boxy nostril.) If she got here in now she’d see me bare, perched right here on my small steel stool. I’ve simply opened the window. A gently polluted breeze is sifting off the sidewalk and I’m spreading my legs, letting the air come up cool by way of my crotch and sizzling out my mouth. I make it work like an organ sweep, just a little city exorcism. The one stimulants on this entire house are my work, positioned like errors alongside my wall.

All of the work are of my brother. You wouldn’t acknowledge him in them. In actual life my brother has a straight line down his nostril, caramel hair that waves upward, and eyes which might be a really tough blue like there’s black beneath them. However within the work you gained’t discover him like this. I’ve given him new shapes. You may mistake his cheek for an elephant tusk. His mouth for a small vat of blood. His nostril the cracked fringe of a tile.

What I imply to say is, Withheld is not going to be trifolding me and my dying brother into that little catalog. I’ll do it myself. All this time I’ve been sitting up right here feeling dramatic, feeling nothing, pondering: That fortunate boy will get to drop off and I’m caught right here clinging. Now, nevertheless, I’m beginning to really feel the holy sequence of convictions one should at all times really feel when setting out on one thing new: That is the perfect concept I’ve ever had; that is the one concept I’ve ever had; that is the one concept anybody has ever had. I’m conscious these convictions sound much less thrilling when written. That’s at all times the way in which with language, an inadequate medium. I attempt to not use or eat it. It’s not that I haven’t learn, it’s that I’m an adolescent reader. I learn too selfishly. I decide up books making an attempt to determine extra about myself—as my brother, Demetri, has suggested. The problem is that the studying turns me into different individuals whom I quickly after abandon. And this jogs my memory that for probably the most half the self is simply one thing that regularly takes up, performs with, after which abandons different selves. I don’t should be reminded of this. And, anyway, phrases must be spoken, not written. Like how they used to do it—a return to the glory days of oral! As I’m now understanding, the worst factor about writing is that it takes time. Due to this fact writers should consider in previous‑original issues like focus. I’ve no religion on this. My religion is within the picture, in instantaneity, within the skill to see and say it .

In a way Demetri’s religion was additionally within the picture. He labored in documentaries. His most up-to-date piece, sadly, is a movie (or documentary, although it incorporates no official paperwork, it solely needs to represent a doc in itself, which I refuse to concede that it does), a movie about us, principally about me, however not an excessive amount of on this as a result of it embarrasses me, and I’ll solely say that after I discovered he made it, at first I actually thought: good. That’s fantastic. A minimum of it’s off his chest. In reality I used to be shocked he bought it achieved. As a result of usually my brother was the sufferer (Is the sufferer? What’s the tense for the dying?) of what he solely semi‑sarcastically referred to as his religious quests. The specifics of those quests are irrelevant, simply know he was a type of individuals whose life centered round ethical questions like am I fallacious, did I do fallacious, how can I amend?

Demetri would sit bare within the East Tenth Avenue bathhouses and take into consideration these questions. He’d sweat them out. He’d run to the bodega for a bag of Smartfood and a bath of mouthwash and are available again empty‑handed, the questions having distracted him. He believed that the one method to get at them was to privately and intentionally dedicate his life to them. His making the movie—the documentary—was a method to come to some solutions. Nonetheless, I discovered he made it and thought: Nobody will care. Nobody will watch it. I forgave him. I went to his sickbed, regarded into his sunken, radiating face and I stated: “That is fairly good revenge for my having oppressed you, Demetri. And so I forgive you.” Nevertheless it’s true I’m having a little bit of bother forgiving myself.

Nati and I had been on the cellphone lately, and along with her typical coldness she stated I used to be the one who killed Demetri. “You’re the explanation he’ll die.” Not that you just care about her but, however I’d such as you to know that that’s the sort of particular person we’re coping with. Alas.

They’ll actually kill him now (although they prefer to say they’re letting him go, releasing him—which is to say, proscribing him from air and feed). It’s taking place in two weeks at 3:00 p.m. By some accounts—these of sure docs or philosophers—he’s already lifeless. He has what is known as a depressed consciousness. A tumor is sitting squat on his meninges. And now his mind stem has turned inward, develop into a cussed baby with its arms crossed, refusing to liaison correctly between the spinal wire and cerebrum.

Nonetheless, as he dies his satisfaction solely appears to develop. I am going to his little sickroom to go to him. He’s organized it in order that the Replacements and Pharoah Sanders are enjoying by way of his audio system on rotation. He’s mendacity in mattress, silent. His face stares up at nothing and is dry, glowing. His smile—which I’m at all times reminded just isn’t really a smile, solely an involuntary twitch of the zygomaticus minor—has been suggesting all these very dangerous jokes that are all actually true. I want I may consider one now. I’ll have my very own after I die. I do know this as a result of the nurse advised me, along with her scrub authority, that demise is at all times attended by dangerous jokes and fundamental truths, in contrast to life the place everybody’s hilarious and mendacity on a regular basis. She was severe.

Anyway, he’s there, and shortly the docs will enter his room, and they’ll name me, and I’ll keep right here, writing.

One final thought of writing. I’m pondering: If I had been to let you know I used to be portray your portrait in order that I’d seize all the things you might be and all the things you’ve ever been—simply by you for hours at a time—you’ll be excited, you’ll be desirous to see the place I took it. But when I had been to let you know I used to be writing the story of your life, utilizing exhausting details and descriptions, you may really feel trapped. You may really feel a extra literal transcription of your life would don’t have anything to do with what’s actual to you. It might not seize the unknowable bits of you (the way in which a portray may). That’s all I imply, that writing—with all its specifics—has a tougher time with the true. This constant lack of religion in actuality turns into (for me) an issue that extends past language. As an example, my suspicion of my very own life is deepest after I assume I is perhaps feeling one thing “actual,” like after I assume I is perhaps in love, or after I assume I’ve ultimately succeeded, and even after I assume I would’ve failed however in a wealthy manner—any time after I know some deep sense of that means must be tunneling into the soul someplace, however just isn’t. I lose religion. Anyway . . .

Demetri’s movie about us: I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to. I didn’t ask him for particulars about it. I didn’t ask if there have been shut‑ups of my eyes or my tooth. If everybody was going to see the way in which they’re gnarled into my gums and are available out on this stacked and slanted sort of manner. I didn’t ask for a plot abstract (of my very own life!) or for structural particulars. I can guess on the define. Demetri will begin after we are youngsters.

He was obsessive about youth, and with posterity. In reality earlier than he actually started dying he satisfied me to donate a portray of mine to our highschool. This was after I began making a bit of cash. I’d offered a pair items at public sale. I’d been written about and reviewed (I’d been referred to as a “pressure” nevertheless it was nonetheless “unclear” if I used to be value being reckoned with; I’d been referred to as “highly effective” however they didn’t know if the watercolor of me being railed from behind was “liberative” for girls or if it solely “reaffirmed submission”). A donation at that time, three years in the past, could be a small asset for the varsity district. “Donate them an previous one, a superb one,” Demetri instructed me. He was so insistent, I got here to know, as a result of he wished the prospect to go converse to the varsity—in Longhead, Lengthy Island, a tiny city you don’t know and don’t wish to—he wished to return there and lecture. By then that was what he did for me. He’d provide you with issues to say about my work, to flick it spinning into the world and provides it route. We wouldn’t seek the advice of about what he wrote. He wouldn’t ask me if he bought my work “proper” and I wouldn’t ask him to make sure you embrace this or that. We by no means mentioned whether or not his written copy or my precise artwork was what bought me into sure exhibits, galleries, properties.

The varsity was joyful to have him go to. They had been enthusiastic about his return. There’s even a recording of the discuss he gave. I usually discover myself pulling up the video and watching him. The best way he stands recklessly tall on the little podium. I watch his face twitch round earlier than the younger crowd settles. He doesn’t know what to say to youngsters. He’s ready a speech, however on the final second he has scrapped it. Now he stands there and clears his throat till it sores. He tells the room filled with pubescents that with the intention to settle down he’s going to think about them bare. He blushes and quickly takes this again. After which says it once more. He asks what number of of them have any grandparents left. He says he’s there to debate a visit to the Virgin Islands after which asks how many individuals have been to an island or know of a virgin. He can’t cool down.

“Ava and I had been taken to a Virgin Island, as soon as. It was our first flight,” he lastly begins. “I used to be 9. Ava was eight. On the aircraft we had been sitting twenty rows away from our father. As a result of we had been loud, in the way in which that tragedies could make you actually rambunctious.” He coughs. “On the aircraft”—he tilts ahead, towards the mic—“I grew bored. I started taking maintain of little threads of Ava’s hair and gnashing them between my tooth,” he tells them. “When she felt the tug she turned, noticed a piece of her hair in my mouth, my eyes broad. We each burst out. Ava had a manner of shrieking when she laughed, she sort of threw her head again and bore all her tooth. Again then her canines had been simply coming in, breaking out by way of the pulp, which made her look ferocious. So we actually simply sat there and shrieked, smacked one another, leapt up in our seats.” He explains to the youngsters that I fell in love on this journey. “When the flight attendant got here to quiet us, Ava advised him she thought he was stunning, and that he had stunning eyes. She thought it was good kind to let an individual know.” Right here Demetri stalls. The sunshine thins his physique and for a second he stands there shrinking.

In his speech Demetri skips over a lot of the holiday. He picks issues up on the finish. However the journey itself was an eternity.

We landed on the island and had been shepherded right into a van that may instantly take us to the lodge, as if to look or go elsewhere had been legal. Within the van Demetri and my father sat throughout from me, arm to arm. The van went over a bump; everybody was for a second lifted out of their seats, apart from our father, who didn’t raise. I watched his profile—his nostril a blade slicing by way of the blur of timber. Our father reminded us the place we had been and requested if we remembered something about colonialism. Demetri did.

On the lodge our father spoke with the suited and sweating males behind the desk. Demetri and I left him. We stood out on the foyer’s balcony and regarded into the ocean. We’d been promised clear ocean water, however all we noticed was black, with bursts of vibrant navy far out the place the solar hit. “You’re mad,” Demetri stated to me, “as a result of the water’s not see-through, and since you had been in love with the flight attendant, and he didn’t love you again.”

I thought-about this. “You’re mad,” I stated. “About?”

“Excretions.” We’d heard the time period on the aircraft, from two vagina docs on vacation.

Demetri turned to me: “You might be largely vaginal.”

“You’re a vagina.”

We heard a girl come out onto the balcony and stand behind us. She requested if we had been admiring the view.

“No,” Demetri stated. He checked out me—we conspired to not flip towards her. “I wouldn’t say that we’re admiring the view.”

The lady laughed. She appeared impressed along with her personal laughter, along with her very skill to snigger, particularly with youngsters. “Not admiring the view? What are you doing then?”

Demetri thought-about this. “Observing it,” he stated. “That’s hilarious,” the girl stated. Once I turned towards her, she smiled. Her tooth had been pulled tight collectively, so vibrant that they appeared to make noise. She edged towards us.

“Are you two right here alone? No dad and mom?” she requested. We felt her smile proceed behind our backs. I started to reply, however Demetri spoke first.

“Simply our father is right here,” he stated. I didn’t assume he was going to say it. “As a result of our mom is within the ocean. She ran in final yr.”

The lady was undecided now. We waited for her. She checked out me. We’d seen this look earlier than, from all of the city moms. The pity and distaste every time Demetri and I had been frank about demise—their concern over whether or not or to not consider us, their questioning if we had not inherited the melodrama, or if indifference was its different kind. The lady paused. “Honey”—she regarded down towards me—“is that true?”

I checked out Demetri, who saved himself busy by pretending to note one thing within the timber.

“No,” I stated. I attempted to take up Demetri’s technique: “Our mom didn’t run. She walked into it very slowly.” This was true. Our mom was an actress. She had began off in Shakespeare and ended up in commercials. On the evening of her demise she took the tripod out onto the porch and recorded herself strolling into the Sound—a recording that Demetri didn’t watch however that he usually watched me watch, till it was taken from me. Anyway, this journey was our time to recalibrate, as we heard it described. It was our reintroduction to the water. It was vital to start out the place the water was clear, the place you could possibly see all over to the underside—besides that we couldn’t.

On the porch Demetri and I had the sudden urge to do away with this girl. “Ava,” he shouted, and pointed towards a close-by department. A thick inexperienced fluid was creating on the finish of a leaf. I didn’t know what he was going to say however I primed myself for motion. Earlier than we may carry out, our father stepped exterior. A room key in his breast pocket.

“Okay,” he stated to us.

The lady smiled and took a step again. “Sorry,” our father stated.

Since she possessed an excessive, typical magnificence I watched to see how he checked out her however there was nothing in his face.

She urged he actually need not apologize and stepped towards him, providing him her hand. “Édith,” she stated, “I’m the resident artist right here. I paint portraits of households on the seashore, normally at dawn and sundown, in case you are ever .” She identified a small bungalow to the appropriate of the greeting middle. “That’s my studio. When you three would really like a fast tour . . .” She checked out Demetri and me. It was clear that she anticipated our pleasure. We stayed quiet. She regarded once more at our father.

“It’s good to satisfy you,” he stated.

“It’s good to satisfy you,” I echoed. Demetri reached out and hooked his arms round our father’s legs. “It’s good to satisfy you,” he stated, echoing us.

Édith smiled midway, like she’d made a mistake that eluded her.

Demetri and I left our father, who took our luggage. Alone, we made our method to the pool: it was unguarded, empty. We stripped to our underwear and bought in. Demetri was determined to conduct the snigger check. “It’s as a result of,” he advised me, bobbing, “once you snigger your muscle tissues loosen up and also you breathe out actually exhausting and you may’t swim anymore.” He was clumsy within the water. His moist hair in a jagged rim round his head like an inverted crown. “And so that you drown and die,” he defined.

“So check it,” I stated.

He dunked his head into the water after which sprang up excessive, his eyes crossed, and shouted, “FUCK your DICK.” He yelled it as he leapt, his arms straight by his sides. “ANAL.”

I almost burst. I bared my tooth and kicked out into the water, springing away. I managed to scream his identify. I used to be nonetheless laughing as I sank. Demetri watched as water started to funnel by way of my mouth. I thrust my neck again for air and regarded on the sky, a bruised, imply blue with small scraps of cloud. I referred to as his identify once more. He didn’t come for me, however I didn’t drown. Quickly we collected ourselves. We climbed out and sat on the ledge with our legs nonetheless within the water. For plenty of minutes we stayed silent.

“Do my eyes seem like yours proper now?” I requested, turning to him. His eyes had been broad open.

“I don’t know, how do mine look?”

“Blue,” I stated, “however with solar caught within the blue.” I regarded nearer into his coloration. “A sticky blue.”

He put his head nearer to mine—specializing in my left eye, then my proper. “No, I don’t assume so.”

I advised him his breath smelled like clay—which it did, and which it does nonetheless. Even now his sickroom has the stench of sediment.

Quickly we heard footsteps behind us, and after we turned we acknowledged Édith—she had taken off her hat. I bear in mind her auburn hair matched her reddish eyes precisely, however solely as a result of I felt Demetri discover this beside me. He had stopped respiration.

“Are you two hollering?” Édith requested us, her palms laced collectively and pressed towards her abdomen.

“You paint portraits,” I stated to her, standing up. Demetri adopted. “So do I.”

Édith smiled with the identical sympathy as earlier than. We wished to inform her to not. “I do, sure. And that’s very good,” Édith stated, nodding and smiling anyway. “It’s at all times good to color. To have a wide range of hobbies, particularly at such a younger age.” She nodded and nodded. Even again then I need to’ve thought some variation of, This particular person solely drinks wine.

Demetri and I stood collectively, trying very portraitable, we should’ve thought. We waited for Édith’s provide to color us proper then. As a substitute she stood in silence. My hair was moist. I felt it sticking to my neck, in plaits over my shoulders. I knew my abdomen was out, exhausting and bloated. I felt my legs glued collectively. I waited for Édith. Édith stated nothing.

“You’ve gotten a superb costume on,” I stated to her.

Édith regarded down at her costume. It was white linen, with a tan belt tight round her ribs. “Thanks.” She smiled.

Collectively Demetri and I waited, once more, for our invitation to be painted. However Édith solely stared, as if requesting that we go on talking. Simply after I had provide you with one thing, Demetri bolted—for such a small physique his moist toes slapped heavy towards the cement. I waited a minute to attempt to let Édith discuss to me some extra. She failed. I ran again to the bungalow.

Demetri had not but gone in. He was there standing by the door, his finger to his lips. “Shh,” he stated. “He’s sleeping.” He meant our father. “He’s going to sleep all day.”

We sat on the bottom exterior the door. The stone’s grain sharpened into my ankles. Demetri let bugs crawl onto his finger, then shepherded them onto his palm—ants, small spiders. “COLONIZE ME,” he yelled at them.

The solar was nonetheless excessive. It had taken on a sourness. Demetri saved spitting. Sitting there doing nothing we started to sweat.

“Okay,” I stated, standing.

“We want exhausting hats,” Demetri stated as we marched all the way down to the seashore, making our manner by what Demetri thought an grownup may name a charmingly ramshackle footpath. “We are able to soften these rocks.”

I advised him we would have liked to go lacking.

“That may be stress-free.” He requested me if I had identified our father could be sleeping the entire time.

I stated no. Our father slept all day at dwelling, too, however we thought it was as a result of our home was darkish, exhausting. The island, nevertheless, was not. As we walked, I felt my face burning. I scratched my pores and skin like this may scrape off the warmth. We continued in silence till the branches cleared and the primary trace of water was seen. We heard lapping earlier than we noticed the waves, at which level I screamed Demetri’s identify and raced towards the shore, working all the way in which to the sting. There, I regarded out. The water ultimately was clear and vibrant, pulled tight underneath the solar. I turned to seek out Demetri, who had stopped between the bushes and the shoreline, and waved at him to come back. He didn’t transfer. I referred to as him over twice extra and warranted him you could possibly see all the way in which down by way of the water, into the sand. When he nonetheless didn’t come, I turned again towards him.

We stood watching the waves. I began telling Demetri the way it smelled like salt and moss and water, and he advised me I used to be fallacious and that these had been simply objects and never scents, which had been completely different classes of thought, although he knew objects may have scents, however again then he was caught within the behavior of making an attempt to provide order to issues as a result of he thought it’d give him energy, and thought with out energy was ineffective. And simply as he was asking me to explain the scent of salt—simply to see if I may—we caught sight of Édith. She was standing farther down the seashore, along with her costume bellying out behind her, portray a household posed earlier than the sundown.

I turned to Demetri and braced myself. “Do you assume I’m stunning?” I requested him.

He pretended to not hear me. “The place?”

“Do you assume that I’m stunning?”

“I don’t know what you imply,” he stated.

I advised him by no means thoughts. We regarded once more towards the water.

“No,” he answered. “Okay.”

“If you snigger, perhaps,” he stated. So I laughed.

“No, not then, both.” I laughed tougher. “Sorry,” he stated.

I regarded down the seashore, towards Édith.

That is the place, in his speech, Demetri picks it up: “Ava thought it was good kind not simply to inform an individual they had been stunning however to do one thing about it. And so forth our second morning on the island, earlier than the solar was even up, I pretended to be sleeping after I heard her depart our room. She was gone for perhaps an hour or two. When she got here again I saved my eyes closed. I didn’t wish to know. However quickly she was standing over me and letting liquid drip off her physique and onto my arm. She whispered my identify.” He whispers his personal identify into the mic. “So that is it, I lay there pondering. Ava and I had been at all times ready for ‘the dangerous factor,’ the dangerous factor that may finish all different dangerous issues, and I assumed, This goes to be the dangerous factor. Ava whispered to me she was going to activate the lamp. She did. I checked out her. Within the lamplight I assumed somebody had torn her open. She was coated in blues and pinks and reds. It regarded like one large organ had exploded—like she was turned inside out, dying.” Right here Demetri pauses for dramatic impact, after which:

“‘I ruined them,’ Ava defined to me there in our room.

“‘Your garments?’ I requested her.

“She didn’t reply.

“‘What did you break?’”

Demetri tells his viewers that I had entered Édith’s studio by the window and had not solely ruined her work however left her with considered one of my very own, a portrait of a person whom nobody else would acknowledge, however who Demetri and I knew because the flight attendant, painted in my clumsy inexperienced strokes overlaid with a unfastened, watery white, whose sheeny impact was ruined when the paints blended, as I didn’t give the inexperienced its time to dry.

Again then the difficulty we bought into was fixed, and as such irrelevant to us, and so after we had been kicked out of the lodge—off the island, successfully—the one factor that mattered was that the lodge supervisor, after informing us of our pressured departure, didn’t counsel that I throw out my work. He regarded me within the eye as he returned it to me. “And I assume you need this again,” he had stated. I nodded sure and took it from him. Once more he checked out me with a way of solemnity, as if we had agreed on one thing and that that one thing was to do with the remainder of my life. I carried the portrait with me by way of the airport. It was one thing sacred and harmful—I’d not let it go. It was too giant to take onto the aircraft. They had been going to make us test it. Our father wished to throw it out. I refused. “Depart it right here,” he warned me. I didn’t pay attention. He walked away from us after yelling obscenities on the airport flooring. That was the one second of temporary rupture (and it wasn’t essentially between us, however inside him). In any other case he frightened everybody by staying terribly calm.

“That is the portrait we’ll be donating,” Demetri tells the auditorium. From the viewers there’s a refrain of ohs. “And the purpose is”—he finds refuge on this phrase—“the purpose is Ava had advised Édith that she, Ava, was additionally a painter. And Édith had stated it was at all times good to have a passion. However! When somebody calls what is critical for you a passion—as if it’s a trivial reprieve, you recognize, a relaxation, a break from an arduous life and never the arduous life itself—they’re making an attempt to regulate you. Do not forget that worse than an incapability to meet a want is to haven’t any actual want in any respect. There are individuals like this on the planet. They may confuse you. They may wish to management you. Refuse to be managed.”

I groan each time. You righteous fuck, I wish to say to him. These children are already refusing management. The character of the kid is refusal. Though, perhaps, who is aware of. Possibly they’re on the age when the thoughts will get co‑opted. They’re in that season of harm when curiosity will get frosted over by the cool of disinterest. If that’s the case, Demetri’s physique right here is convincing. It is sufficient to preserve them current. His proper hand is on the rostrum, his left arm is up within the air, fingers stretched broad. He leans back and forth in a uncommon shamanic demise dance. His hair’s thinning. The tumor was fashioned by then and it makes him giddy, and the scholars like his vitality. He’s having enjoyable. He’s driving out the perimeter of existence.

I’m wondering if the younger viewers may inform he was dying. I’d say that perhaps after Demetri stepped down from the rostrum, they ceased to think about him in any respect—that he got here and spoke and was forgotten—however this may be not possible. You needed to assume issues about him, even when solely out of combativeness, since you knew he was standing there impressed by you indirectly. His impressions of others had been diverse and inaccurate, and immovable as soon as fashioned. Typically you could possibly see your self crystallizing on his face. I guess at the very least just a few of the scholars thought: This random man who smacks of decay goes to recollect me. He higher take this imaginative and prescient of me with him all the way down to demise, so at the very least after I arrive, part of me is there already.

To offer others the impression that they’re unforgettable—that’s grace. Typically my brother had it.