When Mike was on his deathbed in 2010 in Wisconsin, I wrote him a letter from my office in New York. Perhaps it was naive of me to think I could use words to bargain with biology. I have a copy of that letter. This is what it says:
Dear Coleridge,
As you very well know, Fitzgerald once wrote:
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
I have always associated those words with you, Mike. Through gestures grand and subtle you have consistently shown yourself to be the toughest, most thoughtful, most loyal and hardest-working friend I have. And one of the most fun and considerate people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. You are going to fight through this, rest up, and be better than before. And when you are ready, we’re going on more adventures.
Even though I am not in Madison with you, I am there with you every step of the way as you heal and get better. An hour doesn’t pass without me thinking of you and the fun we’ve had and the fun we will have. You are loved and supported by friends and family literally all around the world. And every day I hope you are aware of it, because we are all aware of it.
So take your time, big guy, and rest up--because we’re going on more adventures.
Your friend,
Wordsworth
I’m grateful I still have that letter, even though it's a hard read. But there’s another letter I wish I had. I wish I could show it to you.
When I was a senior in high school, thinking of what colleges to apply to, I asked one of my favorite teachers to write a recommendation for me. Her name was Cheryl Johnston. After a lackluster sophomore year, during which my grades had slipped, I’d deliberately taken her class, AP European History, with the intention of receiving top marks. In her mid-50s at that time, gray-haired, bespectacled, and often clad in a turtleneck, she had the hardest class in the entire school. And it was terrific. Intellectually challenging but also deeply rewarding. I received an A+ grade. And I had the joy of doing it beside Mike, sitting next to each other, partnering on projects, and studying for exams together. Though we went to the same elementary school, we grew much closer that junior year in high school. We were both literary-minded and shared similar tastes in cinema, sports, and music. I nicknamed him “Coleridge,” and he called me “Wordsworth,” after the 18th and 19th century British Romantic-era poets we both admired.
I only ended up applying to one school senior year, Williams College. I didn’t know what Ms. Johnston wrote in my recommendation because she submitted it sealed without my reading it. Four years later, when I was about to graduate from Williams in 2007, I swung by the Dean’s Office, which I heard let students review their full admissions applications, including letters of recommendation. I opened the letter to learn that Ms. Johnston had written her recommendation for me about my relationship with Mike junior year in high school. It was incredibly sweet and kind and unexpected. She wrote about how I’d helped him come out of his shell and his shyness, something Mike himself wrote to me in an essay. He talked about how, because of his weight, he had internalized negative, superficial views other people had of him and shut himself off from them. I’ve always thought that identity is not behavior, and didn't judge him positively or negatively because of what he looked like or how he or other people identified him, but because of how he behaved. I encouraged him to not pity himself but develop his personality and behave in a way where they couldn’t help but look past their biases. He took to this, and blossomed that senior year and beyond.
With hindsight, I really appreciated Ms. Johnston’s letter of recommendation. After Mike passed away in 2010, I appreciated it more. And after Ms. Johnston passed away in 2021, even more so. Mike would have turned 40 years old today, so I wanted to read the letter and share it, a testament to a time in my life when someone observed our friendship and documented it unbeknownst to either of us. I was sure I’d made a copy of the letter that day in 2007 in the Williams Dean’s Office. But after all these years, I couldn't find it. I’ve searched for it on and off since then. This week alone, I spent maybe 12 hours combing through every paper in my files at home and in my storage to no avail. I called up the college, to see if they could share it with me, only to learn that seven years after a student graduates, they destroy all files related to that student’s time on campus outside of their transcript. Oof. Undaunted, I bought an external floppy disk reader off the Internet to see if perhaps I’d digitally kept it. (Yes, I was still using floppy disks in 2007.) This week, I even bought a Windows laptop PC to read those 20-something-year-old floppy disks. Still no luck.
I wish I could show it to you. But I also know that I’m grateful this week for the adventure I went on with Mike. In trying to find that one piece of paper, I had to sift through boxes and boxes and boxes filled with decades of files, cards, and notes I don’t often visit. It didn’t leave me longing for the past or filled with regret, as much as it made me excited for the present and the agency and life I have today. I wish Mike were still here to live it with us. But I also know that he is with us in the way that matters. And this week, we had another adventure. Happy birthday, big guy. We love you.