Garrett Rogers is probably the most amazing person I have ever met. Ever. I can’t remember a single time we were together that I wasn’t smiley or happy as can be, no matter what else was going on. That was just part of who he was, no one could dare be upset when he was in the room. He glowed. Shined. I swear, that smile could put the entire city of New York to shame. He was just that brilliant. He didn’t know how it felt to be depressed, he was just the opposite. At least, that’s how he came off to all of us. He could laugh and smile and cheer up any soul, even when he was in a hospital bed.
The last time I saw Garrett and his herd of brothers and sisters was on his 14th birthday, in 2008. That day was just a bunch of laughter and Polaroid photographs, getting on the librarian’s last nerve, trying on crazy clothes at the mall, piggyback rides through the park; 6 feet, 2 inches in the air. It was terrifying, yet amazing. We were exhausted and still cracking up way after the sun had done it’s time. But that under no circumstances mean time to head home. It might be out last night together for a month of Sundays. Instead, we lay on our backs in the park, looking up at every star in the sky. There was no counting them, it was hopeless. But nonetheless, he still tried.
“No, not hopeless,” he said, pointing to the sky. He was laggardly tracing the constellations with his index finger.
“Oh, so you know someone who’s counted the stars before?” I joked back.
“Galileo,” he responded, chuckling, “Besides, it just…takes time… patience…” He didn’t sound fully awake, more like he was floating among the patterns over our heads. But when I looked over at him, his eyes were wide open, and he had that small smile that was never lost. I couldn’t help but laugh, and he turned his head to look at me.
“Patience?!” I exclaimed at the slightly confused, questioning look on his face, “yeah, if you can sit here for a lifetime!” He just smiled, and faced the skies once more. The eons of space above us made me feel diminutive and insignificant. It was quiet for a long while, and I was sure he had fallen asleep, before he started to talk again.
“How can anyone look up at this, this…” he gestured out, at loss of a word to describe the grandeur sight, “and not… KNOW..?” I knew what he meant exactly. And even though I was wiped out, half-awake, half-drifting, I would remember the hopeful, dreaming sound of his voice to the grave…
It only took about 26 days before I got the call. A call about an unusual lung cancer, unusual for a 14-year-old boy, at least. Other than that night at the park, it had been months since we had been together, but it couldn’t change how bad it hurt to find out. To imagine that radiant grin and face-full of freckles, lying sick in a hospital bed… No, I wouldn’t even think about it. He was the older brother I could only wish for, even if it was only a few years since I first got to know that face, it as if I’d always known him, in some odd way.
It was only four months after that call, four formidable months of talking to his sister every day, occasionally Garrett himself, that I got a different, much more difficult call at 11 p.m., December 20th. He was gone.
I didn’t go to the funeral. I was supposed to sing, and it would have been the last time I could see him…But I don’t know if I could have been able to keep from breaking down completely. I didn’t have to go to remember him though. I’d much rather have the final image in my head of us laying in that park, not him laying in a casket. Every detail imprinted in my head, that night of stars, forever and a day ago… I’d give the patience of a lifetime to him if I could, just so Garrett could count every single star.
