Hey, friend!

(This one is sad; if you're not up for it, just skip to "What Else?")

I sat down to write this just after learning that Ryan Weaver had passed this weekend.

I don't know Ryan super well. We've had a few interactions on the Internet and he has always seemed to be a wonderful guy--someone I hoped to get to know better some day.

But Ryan is... was... 41 (I'm 40-almost-41), married, with a young son around the age of my kids. Turns out we went to school in the same city growing up. He's an online educator. We're in nearly the same area of the tech world. I feel very similar to him, in a way that makes this hit me hard.

But Ryan is not the first person my age who I've watched share their health battle publicly, and then who eventually passed. The difference, I think, is that this is the first time that specific set of circumstances has happened for me and they're also a dad.

I used to share stuff about my kids on social media all the time, but after my divorce, my ex asked me to stop, so I did, albeit begrudgingly. So y'all don't see pictures of them all the time or hear me talking about them all the time. But I'm freaking obsessed, y'all. Between Imani and my kids I am the happiest man in the world and need nothing else.

So I've had two immediate responses to the news of Ryan's passing:

1. I want to go pick my kids up from school and hug them. For a long time. For an annoyingly long time, so long they say "DADDDDD" and squirm. And then take off work for a week and take them to the beach or Disney or whatever, and just be together with them.
2. I want to fly to Michigan and hug Ryan's kid. I want to make his dad come back. I want to see him get every ounce of love and support he was going to to get from his dad throughout his life. I want to call God and make sure Ryan has a firsthand view of his son's life from wherever his seat is in the afterlife.

Older people often say "youth is wasted on the young", and they mean, I think, that they, given the chance, would use the vitality of youth more wisely. I need a version of that statement that reminds me that my kids' youth won't last forever, either. I'm not guaranteed tomorrow, sure, but I'm also not guaranteed tomorrow with these sweet kids, at these ages. In fact, I'm guaranteed tomorrow will bring older kids, who I'll also love and adore, but the kids at their specific ages will never be here again.

It's not that I don't have a great time with my kids, or love them, or focus on them, and it's certainly not that I'm the first person (nor the last) to experience something that reminds them of their own mortality and then desire to double down on the Things That Matter ™... but hell. This is my newsletter, and this is the thing I'm feeling right now.

It's a very interesting thing to experience, right now in this moment, when just this morning Imani and I were reflecting on how great our lives are. There's one big bother–our old house has been on the market since April and paying double mortgage is killing our finances, and that's frustrating–but outside of that one thing, our lives are so good. So freaking good. I couldn't be any more grateful for my life, my wife, my kids, my company, my friends. And so I feel like I'd better freaking enjoy it, because not everyone gets this great life, and not everyone gets as much time with the great life that I'm going to get, and I guess I'm grateful that Ryan had a great life and that his great life helps shine an even brighter light on my great life.

If that makes any sense.

What Else?