It's been forever since I updated my journal, but this inspired me enough to do so.

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This is the first book in a long, long time that I pulled an all nighter to read. I went to bed at 1 am with the intention of flipping a few pages and going to sleep. At 4 am I forced myself to set it down, turn off the light, and try to sleep. At 4:30 am I conceded defeat to the pull of the book and picked it up again. At 7 am I finished it and marveled at it and slept a few hours on it. I got up to tend to my dogs, and before going back to sleep I needed to post this.

Jim Beaver is someone I admire. Yes he's an actor. Yes he's in one of my favorite television shows. That isn't why I admire him. He's also a former Marine who served in Vietnam. He's also a playwright. He's also a biographer. He's also a single dad, and a very wise human being. This is this Renaissance man's memoir about the year encompassing the discovery that his wife, Cecily, had stage IV lung cancer, two months after their two year old daughter, Maddie, was diagnosed with autism, and everything that transpired for 12 months from that point. It is a compilation of nightly emails he authored to friends and family during that year, which were then forwarded to further and further ripples until they were reaching about 4000 people. And reading them is both a privilege, and a remarkable journey.

If you have ever lost a loved one. Read it. If you have yet to, read it. Just read it. Please. You will be a better human being for having done so.