Ward, probably aged three, in the front of the house we grew up in in Sedalia, Missouri. Ward was born December 12, 1949.

“Who do you think you are, a super star, well, right you are.” That’s how my brother, Ward, was—an asterisk or a star. More than that, he was a star-giver. Everyone received his attention. As soon as he could, he explored the ‘other side of the tracks,’ the black American side of the southern-leaning Midwestern town we grew up in. He knew we are all equal, the same despite differences in race, color, creed, gender. He was always curious how we were continually unmade by each other and by ourselves. He wanted to make it up.

When Ward came home from USC, exotic California to me, he took some of his vacation time to write a paper for my compulsory civics class that bored me. He was always interested in politics and my assignment was on Marxism. I remember reading his essay in front of the class, more particularly, in front of the teacher, Mr. Cooper: slick but never smooth, his black hair greased tightly against his balding cranium, and his eager ears sticking out in generous relief. Mr. Cooper moved to the back of the class as I took his place at the lectern, keeping my face down, reading by rote what Ward had written, reading it there for the first time. I raised my head at the end of the page with the last line, “and we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.”

Mr. Civics didn’t have any better idea than I had of what to make of that conclusion, but he did ask the source of the quote. Fortunately, Ward had asterisked* John Lennon, “Instant Karma.” I rattled that off before meeting Mr. Cooper’s eyes. Our surprise was mutual and wordless. Then, we resumed our places: he, at the lectern continuing his civic lesson in his civil manner, and I, at my seat in the back row while the oblivious class still fidgeted between clock glances and giggles.

Ward in his freshman dorm room at USC in 1967. His hair cut short as he made the freshman basketball team as a walk-on.

Yes, Ward knew his civics; he believed in the constitution. He was liberal, opinionated, helpful and kind. He was always giving me reading lists, from Proust to the Adams papers to the Jungian Dreams, Memories, Reflections. I still have not read all of his recommendations.

Ward was named after Uncle Ward, my father’s brother who was shot down into the Pacific during World War II. I never knew my uncle but understand he was extroverted and good company. He played piano by ear and loved to entertain his friends. My brother Ward was similar in character. He told me we were the sum, or some of everyone we meet.

The name itself, Ward, means to watch, to guard. Like Virgil leading Dante, holding the light behind him, Ward held a light for me. “You were the lamp that led me from that night…through you I flowered to song and to belief.”

Ward didn’t take time to love himself, to feel his own pain and suffering. He drove himself to death, figuratively and literally. He didn’t realize or forgot that he had an Achilles’ heel, that despite his Marxist/Hegelian belief in man as god, he himself was much mortal. Instant karma got him at 24. It knocked him off his feet. But he still shines on and on and on.