The Optimist: 20 years of drying tears

The last words Michael Joyce said to me were, “I’m just going to live until I die.” Only he didn’t say them. He wrote them on a dry erase board, his means of expressing himself once the cancer had taken his voice. I interviewed him at his home a week or two before he died, and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve thought of those words and found encouragement and inspiration in them, most recently about two weeks ago.