I believe today is the day. One year ago, my friend Andy Woodward passed away in his sleep, the result of a congenital heart failure. I don't want to make the attempt to condense into a silly blog entry all my memories and feelings surrounding the connection I had to him, but suffice it to say that he was a singular person.
Without a doubt, I am a better person for having known him, and to have experienced his powerful trajectory of peculiar individuality. Andy was fucking weird. Weird, brilliant, sometimes
off putting, provocative, ludicrous, and almost charged with a desire to live his life to his own standards of
person hood. I know that doesn't make any sense. It's hard to describe Andy in a way that is truly
Andy.
Look, here's a picture of him and my pal Shannon when we were dumb 16 year
olds:
And again, intentionally caressing a guitar case in an unsettling manner:
But I think this photo of us at our informal 5-year high school reunion is my favorite of Andy, as he's grown out of the horror show of
adolescence. He graduated from Virginia Tech, and was completing his Master's in education so that he could teach high school English. Here he is, serenely bemused, a little hammy, and finally comfortable in his own skin:
I miss him, and can only helplessly question why someone with his brilliant and good-hearted potential had to turn it all in on account of a bum heart valve. RIP, Andy. May you discomfit all the angels of God's entourage.
