Keeping Mum.

Earlier this week I learned a friend of mine from college, an essential face to the Madison, Wis., music scene I frequented back in the late 1980s, had entered hospice. Just 52 years old. His bitter battle with cancer decided—and wrongly not in his favor. Last night he passed away. He was not given enough time to live his life; he was not. Lately I've been writing and thinking a lot about our short span here on Earth; for the better part of a year I've been working on a memoir called Keeping Mum: On Mothers & Mortality​. In honor of my friend I'm sharing a passage from this nearly finished manuscript, which is a series of connected essays that together make (I hope) a greater whole. I've chosen a chapter, also set in Madison, from midway through the book, one that grapples with the confusion death brings to those left behind. And reveals how answers do sometimes find their way to you through unexpected messengers. RIP, Rick Fatke. This is for you.