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Last year, Spencer Matthews released a documentary called “Finding Michael,” an in-depth investigation and search for the body of his brother, adventurer Michael Matthews, who fell to Mount Everest in 1999. As Spencer was a similar age to me when I, too, lost my elder brother, I understood well the pangs of loss and the mourning of what have been, and though I knew of Matthews previously, through his various antics in the media and his well-publicized appearances on “Made in Chelsea,” a reality television show about posh Londoners, living in the historic Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, it was seeing “Finding Michael” – and knowing his story – that consolidated his membership in an all too inclusive, unspoken, undesired, and universal ‘lost brothers’ club.
As I write this, I’ve become engrossed in Spencer’s journey toward a world record. This week, should all go as planned, he will set the mark for the most consecutive marathons run on sand, a charitable endeavour for “Global Make Some Noise,” an organization whose partial mission is guiding people through bereavement and mental health struggles. To get there, Spencer’s goal is fairly straightforward, but neither physically, geographically, or emotionally simple: 30 marathons in 30 days, across the deserts of Jordan, burning 7,000 calories a day, often running in mid-day heat, and, at least once, running over the a horned viper, more than capable of releasing lethal doses of venom. Complicating matters, the team has twice lost GPS near the Israeli border.
On this journey, Matthews says he speaks to his late-brother every morning, and while Spencer and my stories differ, every survivor will know that feeling: a lifelong desire to honor that person, live for that person, and make sure they continue exist in the hearts and minds of others, in a way that seems to manifest strongest when radiant lives are cut far too short. It is, without question, an odd experience to grow older and leave someone behind, knowing, with each passing year, each milestone, each and every memorial and remembrance, that they live eternally young and un-reviled by time, and we, merely doing our best to make sure their lives – and ours – were not in vain.