The Bravest Man We Ever Knew

 Just up, by Madeleine Kearns at The Free Press: The Bravest Man We Ever Knew. Stunning.

Dovie described his body as “a straitjacket” even in the best of times, yet somehow amid the prison of his circumstances, he relished whatever simple pleasures broke through: a glass of iced tea or Kentucky bourbon, a butterfly landing close enough for him to take a picture. He would frequently text us photos he’d taken while out on strolls. “Exquisite weather today,” he’d say. “I got almost 12 hours of sleep in,” he once texted, after a long stretch of disrupted nights from pain: “Wonderfully rejuvenating.” He adored the many children in his life and would break into huge smiles when sharing videos and pictures of his nieces. His attitude was often like that of the Jewish writer Etty Hillesum, who, from the confines of her Nazi-occupied Dutch ghetto, once wrote: “The sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head. I believe in God and I believe in man, and I say so without embarrassment.”