The View from 58-inches High

Wade passed away last Tuesday. While I knew the end was near I didn’t realize how near. His death, the cancer that took him, the three and a half years we worked together on a hellish project have dominated my idle thoughts this past week. Now that I’m sitting in front of a screen all those thoughts have run from me. I haven’t even remembered to take a photo of the “scotch glass” he gave me. Like Missy, Wade was a force on this world and on everybody he interacted with. He changed people just by being. I think “being” meant something more to Wade than it did for most people. I’m sad that I won’t miss him on a daily basis. The evil of cancer is that is isolates people from their lives before they die, making their passing feel like they just moved away. Wade didn’t hide from what was happening to him. He didn’t hide from the inevitability. I regret not reaching out to him more. My problem is that I don’t keep connections that move past convenience. I’m a terrible person in that way but I find too many people condemn themselves to living in the past by holding on to stale connections rather than accepting a new, and better, future. I wish I was as good with words as Wade was but I don’t commit the time it takes.