Wow, WTF, as they say?! You really caught us by surprise, dude. And, man, did you make me look foolish, Sunday. When the news came, "Fuck that!" leaped off my lips as fast as a blink. Then came the tears—and, oh, did they come. One after the next with gobs of sobs thrown in for good measure. Thanks, dude! :]
Kind of embarrassing, really. Of course, just my wife was there (she wasn't in any better shape), but I don't cry. Not out of some dumb responsibility to "be a man," it just doesn't come very easily to me, I guess. It's so rare, in fact, when the tears started flowing, I think I scared myself! LOL.
It's been a melancholy few days, and I haven't been on Twitter since Sunday. If you knew me, you'd know that's way out of character. Not sure why, really, I guess I just feel like I would be capitalizing on what happened, in some way, and it just hasn't felt right. I'll be back at it soon enough, I suppose.
I have to say, I'm kinda pissed, brother! We were supposed to meet, you know?! :) Despite my inclination not to meet my heroes, for fear of shattering my image of them, I guess I always felt like I'd bump into you at a kart track, or somewhere "comfortable"—you in your too-tight fire suit and me in my middle-age drag. I'd actually cast off my shyness, for a moment, and share a quick hello. Maybe you seemed more approachable than the others, I'm not really sure.
Guys like you aren't supposed to die, you know?! :) You had the kids...and Susie. Plus the comeback! We were SO looking forward to that. I just don't get it, man. It's senseless, really. Of course, you're not the first person with everything going for them to die young, but I really just don't understand it. Guess I should stop struggling and just accept it, huh?!
For now, I've been clinging to something Oriol said: "They always take the good ones. The rest, we still have a lot of growing to do." It's something, anyway. Smart man, is the Catalonian!
Hey, BTW, don't worry about Susie and the kids, we'll take good care of them—as if you had any doubts! IndyCar rawks! \m/
Well, I guess I've said all I need to say. Must be time to say goodbye.
Thanks, Dan, you brought a lot of joy to IndyCar fans and, apparently, you weren't a half-bad human being, either. :) Gotta say, I sure hope you found there is a heaven and you're circulating some kart track up there. After I've done sufficient growing up, I wanna bump into you, sometime.
Rest easy, man.
—JM
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