I only knew a small part of Harmony. I didn’t know him as a child when he answered to a different name and hadn’t found his true one yet. I didn’t know him as a teenager or young man or before he lost his short-term memory.

I only knew him as the person who came into my sister’s life and never left.

He was the one who apologized when I first met him, telling me he wouldn’t remember me the next time we met. But that eventually, when I had been in his life long enough, I would enter his long-term memory. That was a wonderful day. It felt like becoming family.

I didn’t know Harmony as a father, and have only recently met his sons. But I knew him as the music in my sister’s life.

She and I would be visiting, non-stop sister words and laughter and stories. Harmony would pull out a guitar or dulcimer and there would be soft music flowing behind our stories.

I knew Harmony as a person of giving. But like his music, softly, unobtrusive, in the background. When a visit was over and I’d go to the car, there would be a little paper bag of homemade soap tucked between the seats. Once there was a box of apricots. And of course there was the repurposed cardboard orange juice container with soil and worms for my fledgling compost bin, inspired by his.

I knew Harmony as a reader, a storyteller, a person who could talk about experiences hitchhiking across the United States (twice), about world religions, about music, about books, about peace, and of course, about harmony and balance.

I only saw him angry once. And that was towards the end of the story – or maybe the beginning – when he was mad at himself and blaming himself for what my sister was going to face in the weeks and months ahead as his transition began.

The same thing those of us who knew him face today. The loss of music. The loss of stories. And most of all, the loss of Harmony. I hope one day we’ll meet again out there somewhere and hear his music. And I hope he’ll remember me. It will feel like family.