On Saturday, January 17, 2004
he vomited in the early morning after the prospect of mortality tore through him. Faced with death and isolated in the long dark corridors of an exhausted mind, he collapsed beneath unanswerable questions, reeling, sobbing, listening to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley over and over on his discman. When he couldn't take it anymore, he switched to Eureka by Jim O'Rourke. He woke at 2:00 PM, ears pierced with a screeching hangover, guts wrenching, confused by the wads of tissue on the floor and the despondent, cryptic notes typed into an open Word document on his computer. But he pulled together and drove a 10 hour shift for Badger Cab, and after a long night's work, he returned home and sipped a warm cup of hot chocolate in his room. Periodic bursts of January wind shook the window panes. He listened calmly. Sip. Rattle. Sip. Yes, we all have our bouts with the greater unknown, the suicide "whys" that mangle rational thought. We all have these nights where our minds close in on themselves, tattered and choked. We see the emptiness and it destroys us. And yet we choose to live. To see tomorrow. Somehow we pull ourselves together and put another day behind us, and in doing so deny mortality once more. His mind drifted to the Madison streets he navigated for 10 hours that night, all those dark windows holding in the sleepers, and those cold sidewalks where drunks huddled in their jackets and cigarettes. Thousands of lives, each one finite and waning. Tombstones waiting to happen. And yet each will wake up tomorrow, we hope, and life continues. He marveled at the human capacity for survival. The will to live. To live even as we question the value of life and doubt our future. Persistence in the face of uncertainty. Our greatest hope. Sip. Rattle. But it is not an easy hope. It does not come automatically. It requires effort and patience, cultivated by by continual choice.