This afternoon, I received the news that my friend died this morning. I’ve known for some time that he had a deadly and rapidly progressing condition. So the news was not unexpected, but it was still surprising in how ferociously piercing it felt. He told me last week it was about to happen, but there was a part of me that clung fast to denial. That’s the part of me that sits here, now, and wonders how someone can send me a message one day and be gone on another. It’s perfectly plausible and entirely common, and yet it still seems amiss.

During these last few months, I strained to minimize the gap that had opened between us, the one that inevitably appears between one person who belongs very much to the world, and another who is preparing to exit it. It was important to me that we remain on…