Posted by DeeDee Cloyd-Webber on February 18, 2024:

Tomorrow we celebrate his extraordinary life and mourn what should have been. He was my best friend for 18 years, nearly half my life. We met through unlikely circumstances. My twin sister, Laura, was invited as a blind date to West Point�s 100th Night Ball by his roommate. She very uncharacteristically overslept nearly missing the one flight to JFK from our small town�s airport that day. The flight crew even held the plane for her and returned her dropped ticket for her connecting flight. Andrew, a stranger at the time, picked her up from the airport to then sneak her into their barracks room. He then proceeded to dance on the table trying on party hats for the upcoming festivities. Over this weekend, my sister decided this wild free-spirited guy would make a good match for me. We fell in love hard and fast. We didn�t spend much time in the same room for the first 5 years of our relationship. It didn�t matter. We were hopelessly devoted to each other. Our bond strengthened through postcards, letters, emails, and hours-long phone calls dotted with weekend rendezvous in various cities. We were one no matter how many miles lay between us. We had many grand adventures during our love affair. We drove across the country in his two-door manual pickup truck that only had a cassette player and one tape...Neal Diamond�s Greatest Hits. Nearly getting kicked out of a hotel for breaking into the indoor pool after hours. We attempted to drink all the beer in Germany over four years. We sang karaoke in the back of a taxi for a commercial in Texas. We swam in the warm waters of Hydra, an island full of feral cats and no cars. We accidentally strolled through the red light district of Amsterdam in winter making very awkward eye contact with bored ladies for hire. We bathed in beer at a spa in the Czech. We drove through Italy with only a paper map and didn�t kill each other. We put up wallpaper for 8 hours and didn�t kill each other. We slept in a castle in Malta. We would watch football for days at a time and talk baseball statistics. We played video games until we got blisters. We played sports together. We moved to Chicago, a city neither of us had ever been, in the middle of a blizzard with toddler Gwen in tow. But we had the most fun laughing and talking into the wee hours of the night with a beer between us. Knowing him, he wouldn�t want me to sugarcoat anything about him. Being married to Andrew was difficult. He was an extreme risk taker, a boundary pusher, an all-consuming personality, and a soul marred by the brutality of war. He could be stubborn and moody. But he constantly desired and strived to be a better version of himself. Sometimes that meant leaving me juggling our household alone but I did my best to trust his process. His pursuit was pure of heart. He wanted to make the world a better place. He wanted to help anyone who needed it in any way he could. He recognized every person�s story holds value, and every life is deserving of compassion and respect. Let his memory live on in the kindness we show one another, the challenges we bravely face, and the humility with which we approach life�s challenges - to live differently. DeeDee

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