It’s been nearly two weeks since I received the news of Levi’s death. Since then I have driven down the highway with tears driving down my face, and I’ve sat at this very same desk frozen in a lack of understanding, and I’ve woken up every single morning, and remembered, and been just as confused, and heartbroken, and turmoiled with loss.

And also in those two weeks I’ve felt love pressing in on all sides. There were so many of us who loved Levi, and I’ve had dozens and dozens of messages and phone calls from them. Tears and stories and incredibly generous offers and I’m thinking of you, you’re thinking of me, we’re all thinking of Levi. More than six hundred of you, six hundred different people reading from countries all around the globe, read my last post and shared the stories of Levi. We mourned collectively and gently and even though I am far away right now from my – and Levi’s – home, I felt embraced. I am so grateful for everyone who has talked to me; talked to me and held me over the phone, cuddled me with your words. (It is possible. I believe it’s possible.)

The people who knew and loved Levi – his biological family and the whole giant eccentric Isle Royale one – are good, solid, caring, and generous people.

I haven’t wanted to write more on here. I go on every day – there are days at work, long walks, beers raised in tribute, talks with friends, snowstorms – and yet I have felt guilty writing about anything other than this loss, which I’ll never forget, never be less sad about.

But let’s listen to Homer. He was a wise man.

Question me now about all other matters, but do not ask who I am, for fear you may increase in my heart its burden of sorrow as I think back; I am very full of grief, and I should not sit in the house of somebody else with my lamentation and wailing. It is not good to go on mourning forever.

I will raise a glass of bourbon to my good friend Levi, and into the snowy wilds, set my boots. He was a trooper, a wanderer, a setting-forther, and I will do the same, bravely into my wild life with all of its sorrows and its unexpected joys and loves.