Every Flavor

By the end of the Harry Potter movie craze, Alan was too old to care. In fact, by the time the last book came out, I don't think he read it. But he was totally into the early books. Once, he went to a Harry Potter event at Barnes and Noble, and won some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans by answering correctly that the original name of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He did have trouble pronouncing "philosopher," which came out more like "fill-officer."

Little Alan was so cute and so smart. He used to come home with flawless speed math worksheets. He was often one of the top two in his class. He was meticulously organized. He was pleasant and polite with everyone. While I had a meltdown at most of my birthday parties, he was the consummate host, making sure everyone knew how much he liked their present.

He was rigid about what was just and what was right. He got upset when that was messed with. When his friend was careless and broke the egg Alan was taking care of for an extended school assignment, he was devastated. When he caught a friend lying to him, he was ready to call off the friendship.

There were the foundations of the wall he built later in his life. Even as a toddler, he could shut out other people if he was focused on something else. When he came home from school, we never got more than a word or two about what happened that day.

He had an infectious smile, not that delayed slow to come on grin he later developed, but just an unbridled smile of pure joy. The excitement in his eyes to see me was enough to make me forget whatever other problems I had at the time.  He was game for almost anything. When I was a freshman at Lawrence, he let me close him up into a large computer box and roll it around the floor. He used to beg to go back in the box when he came to visit me. Once, while I was pushing the box around, we ran into Lara Waters in the elevator -- her getting in, us getting out. Right as the doors to the elevator were closing, she heard a tiny voice say, "Can I get out of the box now?"

That Alan was gone a long time ago, but you could see how he grew up to be the man he was. Now, in missing him, I also miss all those other versions of him as he grew up, all the facets that made him a real human being.