Jonathan, How I Wish You Were Here

I recently returned to my brother Jonathan’s article, “Mourning the World.”⁠ Even now, reading it brings immense sadness. His words are still here. He is not. I can read what he was feeling, but I cannot call him afterward. I cannot tell him how much I wish he were still with us.

Jonathan wrote the piece before his death and arranged for it to appear after he was gone. In it, he described watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and being moved by the reading of W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues.” The poem brought him to tears as he contemplated leaving the people and the life he loved.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he wrote.

What saddened him was the thought of no longer living. There was so much he wanted to remain part of.

As his brother, I find that terribly difficult to sit with. We miss him from this side of his absence. He had already begun grieving from the other.

In my poem, The Majesty of Time, I wrote:

Time moves majestically,
Seemingly infinite,
For which it is except in life,
Where there is an unknown line,
And time will stop forever.

Reading Jonathan’s article again, I feel the distance between understanding those words and experiencing them. We know our time is limited. Yet we make plans, put off conversations and assume there will be another opportunity. Most days, we have to live with some expectation of tomorrow.

Then someone we love is gone, and we discover how much we had quietly expected to share with them.

A line later in my poem now holds particular meaning for me:

Remember those that made a difference.

I think of Jonathan.

Many people knew him through his financial writing. His work helped readers think about saving, investing and preparing for retirement. Through HumbleDollar, he also helped create a place where people could discuss what their money was for: the choices it made possible, the security it provided and the lives they hoped to lead.

I share in that inheritance as a reader and a contributor. But I also miss him as my brother. However grateful I am that his words remain, there are times when reading them makes his absence more painful. I want the person who wrote them to be here.

That is part of what he has left behind: work we can return to, a community that continues, and relationships in which he is still deeply missed. His influence carries on alongside the sadness.

I have written before about the value of time. Retirement gave me greater freedom to decide how to spend mine. Losing Jonathan has made those decisions feel more personal. Time is the opportunity to be with Joey, visit Mum, hear from my son and daughter and watch Milo grow. These are parts of my life that I can so easily think of as simply being there.

Jonathan’s words make me pause over that assumption.

I don’t always pause. I get distracted, tired and overwhelmed. Knowing time is precious doesn’t make me endlessly patient or grateful. Sometimes I recognize the value of a moment only afterward. But I can keep trying to give the people I love more of my attention while we are here together.

I wish Jonathan had been given more time. No reflection on gratitude or legacy takes away that wish. There were more conversations to have, more words for him to write, more life for him to enjoy.

What I can do is remember him, share his work and consider how his example shapes the use of my own remaining time.

“Remember those that made a difference.”

When I wrote that line, I could not know every sorrow it would one day hold. Today, it brings me back to my brother.

Jonathan, you made a difference. How I wish you were still here.