I sleep like a baby on a huge pile of Medium bonuses.

I think you're right about Curtis and me. In a small way, I feel like I know him a little bit through the things you've written about him. A kind of life after death, I suppose.

The luminous darkness brings gifts. But it all comes at a cost. I think part of the reason your story affects me so much is because I know that Curtis' story is the story of so many people, and that it could very easily have ended for me like it did for him. It's only the thinnest margin that separates us.

I got lucky, and he didn't. But in at least one sense, he was more fortunate than me. He had a mother who loved him to the ends of the earth, and if your stories are any guide, he never doubted that love. If lives are weighed in some invisible scale, I'd bet that counts for a lot.