The Purple High Country

ISSUE #280

My little brother died just after midnight on January 20, 2023. We buried a handful of his ashes in the Smoky Mountains on his 28th birthday that May. I know we weren’t supposed to. What choice did we have? It was one of his wishes; I’d fulfill them all if I could.

He played the guitar like you wouldn’t believe. Two years his elder and I still played the bass because I couldn’t compete on his six-stringed turf. He loved mountain music—God, that annoyed the piss out of me. Every birthday, he’d get a new banjo; every night, I heard the twang from up the stairs. He was a lover of Bright Eyes, Blaze Foley, O Brother, Where Art Thou? He knew many things I never will.

Last weekend, we celebrated his birthday with him at Indian Gap, his resting placing on the state line at 5,500 feet. As we drove to visit, we listened to these songs. Some of them were his favorites; I didn’t care for them at the time. Some of them are mine; they were favorited on his phone. All of the things he showed me are with me now. They are weightless; it is still my job to carry them.

Everything’s okay; we can all relax. It’s just time I made him his lasting playlist. No longer is he locked in constant battle. He is forgiven; he always was. He is living now in paradise.

And that is the one thing he and I knew together, the comfort only the profane find in God: That nothing—even the emptiest void—can be perfect forever.

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