Hey Jude...

I've written before

about this one.

In many ways

it was the signal event

for why Greg became

so important

to me.

One day, months after

I'd heard the news,

frustrated with how things were

in my life,

I had a dream about Greg.

In it he recommended

that I read

Jude the Obscure.

In those days,

I was still developing

a mature sense

of literature,

finding my way

to reading good books

after spending too many years

wasting my time

with junk material,

indulging myself

when I should have been

enriching myself.

When I read Jude

I understood the difference

better than I ever had,

even though I'd already

invested in Melville,

found at least one great writer

on my own,

whittled away my college years

in a program

that twenty years later

pays only dividends

privately.

Jude was an act

of pure pathos,

an elegy

for the kind of life

I myself

was now living,

and perhaps,

the kind Greg had as well,

without my ever knowing it,

before it was too late.

Reading Jude

was like walking under an overpass

as cars zoomed across.

And I never would have read it

without Greg's unlikely

intervention,

an act

I still can't explain,

since dreams

normally

are some strange combination

of the thoughts you already have,

not something new,

not something

someone you knew

had never talked about

with you,

and you hadn't seen

in forever,

who has since died,

and you feel guilty

at having taken

for granted.

But Jude is a book

that kind of explains

things like that.

And I thank you again,

Greg.