It's been 32 years since Andy, my beautiful friend died and I still miss him. I found a picture of his younger brother on the net and so I have some sense of what he would have looked like had he lived beyond his short 24 years. He always told me he thought he would die young but I presumed that those were just the words of a young adventurous man who cannot feature himself as an old man. Despite having been a state championship wrestler, he was the gentlest man I have ever known. He had a gentle spirit - perhaps too gentle for this unforgiving world. He loved his family, he loved the Navajo ways of his ancestors, he loved his friends, and yes, he loved me.

Andy remains alive in my memory. He remains alive in my heart. And sometimes it seems like I can feel him there in the quiet solitude of dawn or as a whisper of wind at night, forever in my mind, forever in my heart.