Thread by @EnswellJones

In 2009, I was lucky enough to spend time with Roger Ebert. I’d seen him on TV when I was a kid, but I came to admire him more through his blog. He had cancer in his jaw, and the surgery left him unable to eat, drink, or talk. But he could still write, and he wrote up a storm.

At first he wanted to do our interview by email, but I convinced him to let me visit him in Chicago. He later said that it was an “inexplicable instinct” that made him say yes. We were both nervous, I think—neither of us knew how conversation would work. We worried for nothing.

Roger talked at home using text-to-speech software. When we were out, he replied to my questions by writing his answers on blue Post-it Notes and passing them to me to read. Sometimes we’d get on a roll, and notes would fill the air between us like confetti.

Roger died in 2013. I found out from a friend and dropped the carton of milk I was holding. I’d kept every blue Post-it Note. They’re in my top desk drawer. I pulled them out when he died, and I did again yesterday. I like to read them to remind myself of some important things.

I asked Roger why he wore his wedding ring—he was married to Chaz, who is amazing—on his middle finger.

Once, I must have looked at him a little sadly without realizing I was.

Then he talked about how he didn’t have it so bad, in comparison.

I like to ask people about their dreams. I asked him what his dreams were like—what version of himself he was in them.

I asked him why he thought he hadn’t had cancer and could still talk in his dreams.

I asked him if he missed being able to talk in his waking life.

One night, we went out for dinner. He didn’t eat, of course. He watched Chaz and I eat. I had salmon that I can still taste, and I said out loud how good it was, and then I remembered, and was mortified, and I began apologizing to Roger, and he shook his head and wrote—

At the end of our time together, I worried out loud to him that I hadn’t done a good job. He was such a great writer, and I was intimidated to be writing about him. He shook his head again. I got one final Post-it Note.

The last time I saw Roger, he was standing in his doorway, waving goodbye. But whenever I need to talk to him, I can open my desk drawer and hear his voice. It really was the best possible interview. Because it has never come to an end.