On Friday morning, 13 May, at 5:57AM, my friend Steve died. I visited Steve twice the previous weekend—Saturday evening and Sunday evening. He was unable to speak due to the ravages of throat cancer, but he had a notebook and pen he used in order to communicate—a simple, spiral-bound, single-subject notebook, and an inexpensive stick pen.

On that Saturday evening, several of us were gathered around his bed. At one point in our visit, as the conversation waned, Steve asked for the notebook and pen. We all fell silent and watched him write, just as we did each time he took the notebook. This was our way of giving him the floor. We waited. A minute passed, then two. He handed me the notebook.

In his all-caps scrawl—between lines about our plans for Sunday’s visit, and his frustration about not being able to have a conversation—following a few letters scribbled out, lay a single line. 

DAVE BEWARE OF YOUR TIME.

The others looked over my shoulder and read. I looked up at Steve. I told him I perceived he was not speaking of our visit, the time of evening, and the hour-long drive home that lie ahead. He nodded. Indeed, he was not.

I brought this page of the notebook home. In the corner, in pencil, I dated it, wrote his name, and the name of the hospital and its location. The paper sits on my desk in my study. I can see it from where I’m typing. This page of last words. And on it, this line—to me and for me—this warning, this admonition, this advice borne of experience.

What to do with these words of such weight? What to do with these words so freshly carved? 

For now, in honor of Steve, I will read them again.