Cull your in-box, you never know what you'll find

I spent some hours culling my Gmail inbox last night. It had grown to over 275 messages, some from over a year and a half ago.

What I was surprised to discover was a treasure trove of messages from my friend Michael, who died last summer. But what was so wonderful, was that nearly all of them were from the year when he was in remission from his cancer. Looking at what were essentially ordinary missives between friends took on a very different feel. We talked about the election, work, football, baseball, work ( he liked to talk about work), music, and most things. But not his cancer. So fucking naive we were, but I would never trade that year for anything in my life. As horrible as 2008 was, 2007 was pretty wonderful.

I never expected to be transported back to a time that was, dare I say, more innocent than today. But cleaning out my mailbox gave me the memory of a time when I (we) thought that he had cheated death. It was a lovely time, so long ago.