Ode to Coyne

Happy 34th Birthday

My oldest brother, Coyne, is one of the people I love most on this earth. He is brilliant, and thoughtful, and believes in his loved ones with deep conviction. He is logical, loving, and largely unconcerned with the social norms that fence so many of us in. 

He is persistent, too. It’s easy to laugh at the child who pushes back on every question with, “why,” but it’s also famously maddening. I sometimes feel the same way with Coyne. 

And yet, that refusal to accept the first answer he gets is also part of what makes Coyne so remarkable. In 2018, I had endless reasons to not go with Coyne on a somewhat spontaneous trip to Morocco and the South of France: I was in my last few months at a job I cared about and I couldn’t spare the days off; I was about to be unemployed and it was bound to be quite expensive; it wasn’t long enough for such an ambitious trip; it was simply a crazy thing to do. Coyne pushed and pushed, and at one point, I remember being frustrated: did he not respect the importance of the work I did?! Ultimately, though, talking around in circles with Coyne helped me realize that it was guilt more than necessity that had me squeamish about taking time off. Ever logical and generous, he asked me how much I felt I could afford for the trip, then covered the rest of the costs himself. We decided to focus not on all the wonderful things we wouldn’t be able to do on such a short trip, but to revel in all that we could fit in.

And what a trip it was: we rode camels and camped in the Merzouga desert with nomadic tour guides; we looked at fossils and sipped mint tea in the mosaic-laden courtyard of our airbnb. While others on our trip admired the sunset, Coyne examined a bloated tick on his camel’s ear and took a quick nap on a sand dune so he could stay up most of the night talking to our guides. Coyne’s inquisitive interrogation of our tour guides taught me much about Moroccan culture and the realities of life for the people we were meeting.

In France, we met many new friends and danced until we were sore. We stalled our crappy rental car over and over on the steep streets, overslept at our airbnb and ate Thai food by a canal. Despite the international phone fees and the time difference, we called Grandpa from the parapets of a castle he had visited decades earlier with his brother. Though it was closing soon, Coyne ran around to every arrow notch and guard tower, inspecting the view over imagined advancing enemies with boy-like wonder. 

This boy-like wonder is another Coynism. Like my mother, he is a natural investigator: how exactly does a sundial work, and how might you design your own labyrinth? He has always loved reptiles, strange animals, and tackling challenging puzzles with patience.

Growing up, Coyne was the neutral party, the sage judge in our sibling arguments. In a fight between siblings, Coyne’s assessment of wrongdoing won, even if he ruled against you. In adulthood, too, he is committed to fairness and logic. 

Coyne is a huge advocate for his friends and family. Last year, he had a call with a GiveWell employee who reminded him of me. Though they were on the phone to talk about his own interest in GiveWell’s work, Coyne asked about her job, too, and kept saying how great a fit that would be for his little sister. I was, at the time, six months pregnant and about to move across the country but with his encouragement, I looked into the role anyway. With Coyne in my ear, I saw past all the logistical reasons to not take the job and decided I’d let them decide it wouldn’t work rather than eliminating myself. Now, I regularly text Coyne about how much I love my work there, my brilliant coworkers, and meeting the interesting supporters I spend my days speaking with. Already, my colleagues have come to value his keen insight on our work and his insistence on reasonableness, logic, and improvement.

Coyne is also the most ferocious supporter of my writing. When I was in second grade, Coyne decided that I should keep a journal. I was unconvinced until he gifted me a graphic novel about a girl who journals (Amelia's Notebook). Like Amelia, I started writing in a composition book. I remember Coyne heckling me to write, and indeed, I have entries that corroborate my feelings of annoyance with his refusal to leave me alone about journaling. 21 years later, I have a tub of journals from second grade onward. Journaling has been an outlet, an archive, a processing tool. 

This Grasshopper, too, is the product of Coyne’s belief in the value of my thoughts and his persistence. A year ago, he started asking me on every call when I was going to start a newsletter. Since I started this project in January, I’ve gotten texts most Mondays: “Grasshopper today?” he might ask, or sometimes, simply a cricket emoji and a question mark. On those Mondays when I make time to write, he will often text me a favorite line or reply to my email with a phrase of encouragement. When I haven’t written in a while, he will reply to a text or photo I send him, saying, “Send this as a Grasshopper as is!”

Today, my oldest brother is 34. He is fair, earnest, loving, stubborn, curious, enthusiastic, brilliant, and fiercely loyal. He believes in me and in my siblings with the power of the sun. He roots for us, fights for us, fights with us when he feels he knows best. He bypasses the details in favor of the heart of the event. He is magnetic and unlike any other. For 34 years, Coyne has been a gift to this world. In his honor, I encourage you to find something new to wonder about today.