In May, my godbrother, David, came to visit me in Portland for a few days. On his last night in town I made him manually tighten the screws on my dining room table. It was a job I could have done myself, but he’s handier than I am — also I didn’t want to do it. It made us both feel better to give him a small job to complete before he hit the road early the next day, and now my table doesn’t require a pre-apology when company comes over.

This is the kind of person my brother has grown up to be — someone who drives for hours to visit me, volunteers to do the work I don’t want to do, and then leaves, happy to have been of assistance. He’s a genuinely wonderful human who loves deeply and is much smarter than me, someone who is so reliable that for a while when we were living together in D.C., instead of listing my serious partner as my emergency contact, I listed David. He’s unfailingly good and kind and compassionate and did I mention smart?