As I'm sure most of us did I was sorting through photos of Andy last week and reminiscing. But I was struck with something I suppose I always knew.
     There was a twinkle in that man's eyes. When you see it in people you know it, but it's intangible, it's rare, and it's real. But what does that twinkle mean?
     In my mind it's an appreciation of a moment, whether that moment is sorrow or joy, tarnished or beautiful. That appreciation for the moment is an appreciation for life—a love of life, joie de vie in the words of the French, and Andy had it. It was unmistakable.
     You saw it when he used his uncommon coordination to beat you down in a game of foosball, after skiing a ridiculous line through the rocks on Palavacini, by the campfire after a day on the river.  And you saw it when he looked a good friend in the eye. That look was anything but indifferent.
     Indifference.
    In conventional times we often look to contrasts to make sense of things: life and death, white and black, yin and yang, love and hate. But I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Truth is not in life or death, but in living. Truth is not black or white, it's gray. And the fact of the matter is, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.
     Andy was lots of things, but one thing he certainly was not was indifferent.
     Love.
   Love of places; love of parents, sisters and family; love of moving his body; love of friends; love of Alexia—Love of life.
     These are the things that were Andy Post. And these are the things he has passed on to all of us.
     It's difficult to make sense of events such as these. Why? It's the ring that can't be taken out of the bell, a bell that will resonate for all of us as long as we pause to hear it.
     There's no truth but to return to what Andy helped to teach us.
    Love. Forgive. Give. Settle differences. And live—Love life.
    Andy would have it no other way.
   This song, written about five years ago, is a study in the aforementioned contrasts, specifically of winter and summer, night and day, but it finds truth elsewhere. It looks for truth and contentment in being satisfied with the details of life, details it seems it's easy to take for granted, things I know Andy did not take for granted.

The night was full of stillness
And the moon shone clear and white
The wind made quiet whispers
Telling secrets to the earth

Faint clouds obscured the stars
Like feathers fanned out thin
Like the wings of truth that have followed me
Drawing changes in their path

I never saw my last days commin'
'Till the age of 29
When my body hurt and I sobered up
And I opened up my eyes

When the sagebrush blows I listen
When the moon shines bright I sit
When the seasons change I taste the things
I didn't know I had

As I sat in midnight's chamber
My mind began to churn
The darkness that enveloped me
Was blackness from within

With seasons change comes slow
But it's sure as breaking dawn
It's as sure as snow that melts away
Leaving flowers in the mud

When the sagebrush blows I listen
When the moon shines bright I sit
When the seasons change I taste the things
I didn't know I had

As morning broke dawn cracked the night
Spilling orange across the sky
The creatures woke and the world turned
And the flowers opened wide

When the sagebrush blows I listen
When the moon shines bright I sit
When the seasons change I taste the things
I didn't know I had
 
    No, destroying hope entirely doesn't make sense. Life is long, and anything can happen. But somehow it is still living within me, and I have to rid myself of it. I have to hope that hope will wither and somehow fade. I have to hope that hope will not grow as long as there is love to begin with. Because as hard as I've tried, hope lives on inside me.
    I delete all of the words from my life, her words for me, and the manuscript I began for us. One after the other, I delete the chapters and stories until I encounter the story titled "Power of a River." It is Marie's tale, the story of how she'd been hiking with her husband in Colorado's Collegiate Peaks and how she'd likened life to climbing a mountain. The story doesn't have a direct bearing on Araxie and me. In fact, the seed of it germinated long before I met her. But its meaning is poignant and as true in any life situation as it had been for the two of us.
    Life is like climbing a mountain, one step in front of the other with faith in our hearts that there is a summit up there somewhere. And water does carve stone, the same massive monoliths that draw down snows, which feed the river to begin with. And, yes, rivers do eventually flow away from the mountains they carve.
    It is, after all, who we were. I was Aaron, the mountain that refreshed her flow. She was Araxie, the river that inspired poetic vision.
    Power of a river indeed.