By Cher
I first met Brady briefly in 2017 when I picked up Hailey to take pictures of her. My first impression was simply that he was polite. He seemed nice, but there was not much else to report. I definitely did not drive away thinking, That man is going to become one of the most important people in my life. I probably just thought, Okay, that was Hailey’s husband.
After a couple of months, I started coming around more because I was photographing Hailey’s pregnancy journey. Eventually, she and Brady began convincing me to stay for homemade cold-brew iced coffee. And really, what better way to build a lifelong friendship than over a drink that doubles as a recreational enema? Their cold brew did not gently wake you up, it cleared your entire schedule.
The more time I spent at their house, the more I noticed things about Brady. First of all, he always looked so clean and fresh and happy. I realize that sounds like a strange thing to note, but he looked like someone had just taken him out of the dryer and folded him properly. Meanwhile, I usually looked like I had been living inside of my purse.
He was also incredibly involved with his family and he knew the clothing sizes of all four of their children. He knew what they needed, did their laundry and sorted everything correctly. I was baffled. I had never met another husband who knew what size clothes his own kids wore. I had barely met men who knew what size clothes they wore.
Brady did not “help Hailey with the children.” He parented them. He knew them.
Hailey and I would sit on the couch drinking coffee and visiting while he folded laundry nearby. Sometimes we talked for so long that supper arrived before we had finished whatever story we started telling at lunchtime. Rather than asking when I planned to leave, which would have been a completely fair question, Brady would invite me to stay. Then he would make supper, sit at the table with the kids and bring plates into the living room for Hailey and I so we could keep visiting and both have a break.
Life was life-ing, and Brady understood that sometimes the kindest thing you can do for two tired women is feed them and allow them to finish a story that has already developed fourteen unnecessary side plots.
At that time, I thought both Hailey and Brady were extremely innocent. I never heard either of them say anything outside the lines, if you know what I mean. They seemed almost suspiciously wholesome.
Then one day, while I was babysitting, I looked through their Netflix account. It was filled with the corniest Christian movies ever created. Every movie appeared to involve a struggling family, a small town, an unanswered prayer, a horse and a man who had forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.
I did not know Hailey’s mom, Jeanne, was sharing their account.
So I gave Hailey and Brady full credit for every low-budget Christian romance and emotionally troubled farm animal in their viewing history. Honestly, it made me like them even more, but I also wondered how well we would mesh. They appeared to have been raised inside a Hallmark movie. I had seen some darker parts of life and grown up around chaos.. and the chaos continued into parts of my adult life. Meanwhile, I believed these two spent every Friday night watching a widowed veterinarian rediscover God after inheriting a Christmas tree farm.
But they never made me feel like I did not belong.
Brady constantly did thoughtful things without making a production out of them. Before Hailey and I went for walks, he would brew coffee and place it beside our shoes while we were still running around getting ready and taking turns peeing. There would simply be two coffees waiting at the door.
During the winter, if it snowed while I was visiting, he would come home from work and brush off my car because he knew I still had to drive into Saskatoon for university. I never asked him. Hailey was not standing behind him with a checklist. He noticed what would make someone’s day easier, and then he did it.
For a while, I honestly thought I had met a perfect person.
Of course, Brady was not perfect, but he never seemed afraid to admit when he had been wrong. I remember one day when we were talking about coffee creamer, I thought he was sharing information, but turns out that he thought he sounded slightly defensive about it.. First of all, I do not even drink creamer. He could have launched a full legal defence of that creamer and I probably would have forgotten about it before lunch.
Later that day, he unexpectedly came into the room and apologized to me for being defensive.
I was stunned. Nobody had ever apologized to me over something that small, let alone something I didn’t even catch onto. Most people will emotionally injure you, reverse over the remains of the conversation and then ask why you are acting weird. Brady reflected on his tone regarding a dairy product and came back to make it right.
He kept winning my respect through moments like that: laundry, supper, coffee beside our shoes, snow brushed from my car and an apology about creamer. Just small, consistent acts of love that did not seem small anymore once I realized how rare they were.
That was my first impression of Brady. He was a man who was fully present in his own life. He was in his marriage, in fatherhood, in his home and in the lives of the people around him. He was not a visitor in his own family, and somehow over time, he made room for me too.
That is also what makes remembering those years so painful now.
The man who used to make supper for everyone can now hardly feed himself. The man who folded and sorted the clothes of four children and knew every size now has only one working arm. The man who could notice snow on my windshield and quietly clear it away has lost the ability to do so many of the thoughtful things that once came naturally to him.
Cancer has changed almost everything his body can do.
Brady expressed love through action. He noticed the empty coffee cup, the tired wife, the hungry children, the friend who had a long drive ahead of her. He did not announce that he was being thoughtful. He simply did the thing.
Now he can still notice, but he cannot always act.
That is one of the cruelest parts of his decline. It is not only that we miss everything he used to do. I know he must miss being able to do it too.
I wish I had understood back then that those ordinary days were not ordinary at all. I thought I was simply sitting on their couch drinking dangerously strong coffee while Brady folded laundry. I did not know I was watching someone show me, over and over, what love looks like when it becomes a habit.
That is why I remember the coffee beside our shoes and the plates brought into the living room… the clean windshield and even the creamer apology. Those moments felt tiny when they happened. Now they feel enormous.
Cancer can weaken Brady’s body and take away his independence, but it cannot erase what he has already given us. It cannot unmake the meals, put the snow back on my car or take the coffee away from the doorway. It cannot undo the years he spent knowing exactly what his family needed.
Today, Brady needs the kind of care he once gave so freely. He cannot repay anyone by folding the laundry tomorrow or making supper afterward, but love was never supposed to be a transaction. He does not have to be doing things to be valuable. He does not have to be the strong one to still be Brady.
My first impression was that he was polite. Then I thought he was helpful, innocent and possibly perfect. Eventually, I realized he was something much better than perfect. He was genuine.
He was the suspiciously clean man who appeared to have been freshly folded. The father who knew everybody’s clothing sizes. The chef who fed two women who had over-visited by three hours. The provider of medically aggressive cold brew. And the man who cared enough to apologize about creamer.
I thought I was meeting a nice man.
I did not know I was meeting one of the best men I would ever know, or that his quiet, ordinary love would leave such a permanent mark on my life that years later, I would still remember exactly where he placed the coffee.
Beside our shoes, waiting for us at the door.
to my dear, sweet best friend, Hailey.
