Sudden death and the importance of backups

Because your mind can only keep so much

When the dying’s finally done and the suffering subsides
All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind

-David Berman, “Nights That Won’t Happen,” Purple Mountains (2019)

Death is as much a part of life as living itself, yet somehow most of us end up ill prepared for the dying, be it ourselves or those around us. Nothing will ever neatly fit together; there will be no answers of certainty, of finality. Even when it makes sense, it makes no sense, and especially so when it happens suddenly. When things are just finally looking up. When it feels like a corner has been rounded.

This is my lifelong best friend, Dan. This photo is from summer 2009, based on the van behind him. It was my band’s touring rig, churning out a small Midwest tour and a trip to South by Southwest before crapping out after I clipped a deer, seemingly triggering every problem it had into overdrive. I wish I had a better photo, but we elder Millennials lived in this weird time before cloud backups were a thing, before solid-state drives were affordable and accessible by the masses, when backups took hours or days or spindles and spindles of CD-Rs.

I was an avid amateur photographer who took thousands of photos, including hundreds of Dan, over the years. I think I’ve got about four of him left. And it breaks my fucking heart. You always think you have time. It takes half your life to realize you never had it at all.

Dan passed away suddenly overnight on October 27, 2018, experiencing sudden cardiac arrest about a month after a pacemaker had been finally implanted to help regulate his heart’s rhythm following years of failed attempts by doctors to address a series of compounding cardiovascular issues. He was 33 years old and the one of the best people to grace this planet. His impact on my life was so profound that his death shook me to my core and caused me to reflect on and re-evaluate everything, leading to uncomfortable truths, painful realizations, ended relationships and a withdrawal from the world for half a decade. I am just now starting to move forward from this reckoning. One of the most important parts of the journey for me will be documenting it, including here. Uncomfortable and cringe, maybe, but real and— perhaps most importantly— backed up.

These days I rarely take photos, but when I do, they’re instantly backed up to the cloud. It’s a magical time we are living in now. I wish Dan was here to see it, but I’m doing my best to see things his way these days, to share and to not be so damn hard on myself.