They never said it was going to be easy

There are some things that nights like this are good for - nights where a foot of snow is on the ground and blowing around in the air and there is no place to go and no way to get there. Tonight is the night for Nick.

In November of 2005, I started working for this man. He was tall, with dark hair. He was pretty slender, much what most people would call skinny, too much so. I still remember the first time I saw him and the first time I heard him speak. He entered the room with a jolting walk, one that was very deliberate and a little off-balance. He spoke with passion about his job as the sports information director at my university. I remember his eyes - they were so bright, so fiery.

Shortly after he spoke to my class, I approached him about working for him. He said he needed writers and I acknowledged that I had done a bit of writing and enjoyed it. So started our boss-employee relationship. A year and a half later, he's still my boss and I'm still his employee but it's so much bigger than that. He's my friend, someone I've grown very close to. He's also someone who hasn't got very much time left.

Nick has ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease - named after the famous baseball player. It's a disease that attacks the nervous system and shuts it down, causing paralysis, the loss of motor function, speech, the ability to swallow. Effectively encasing an active, sharp mind and soul in disintegrating body. "There is no known cure" - a candyass way of saying you're going to die.

I stood there and watched Nick get progressively worse. The disease slowly robbed him of his ability to walk so he got a scooter. When he was unable to make it from his scooter to his desk chair, he got a motorized wheelchair that he can control by a joystick. He uses voice-activated software that converts spoken words into text on his computer since that is the bulk of his job, a job in which his performance is beyond impressive.

I worked for Nick full-time over the summer. We shared a lot of jokes. You get pretty close to someone when you spend eight hours a day in an 8x10 office with no windows for three months. Not to mention the five filing cabinets that tower around you. Some days we felt like Milton in the basement with his stapler. Except our stapler was a piece of junk - I always had to go next door and borrow theirs. This fall, I took over some bigger duties so Nick wouldn't have to be stretched so thin. I headed up the soccer season, taking stats and pumping out recaps like my life depended on it. I officially never want to watch four games of soccer in a weekend again. Ever.

Maybe you're wondering why I'm sharing this, or maybe you're wondering if Nick would be okay with me sharing this in a public forum such as this. The reason I'm sharing it is the same reason why Nick would be okay with it. People need to know. You need to know. It's not okay for people to just give up and die. Nick hasn't given up. He fights every day. He fights for the ability to breathe and to survive. On a day when people the world over are griping about having to go to work, Nick is praying that he will be able to go in to the office. No, Nick hasn't given up and I'll be damned if I'm going to stand here and let him fight all by himself.

People need to know about Nick and his amazing story because I know - I know that if this were my story, it would have taken a completely different course. I wonder why this is happening to a man who couldn't deserve it less. Calling it unfair doesn't even do it justice. But I've given up asking why because I can't find the answer. Instead, I just visit him as much as I can, talk with him and be real with him. Most of all, I try my best to learn from him. Yeah, he's taught me a ridiculous amount about sports writing, about game recaps and stats. But that pales in comparison to what he's taught me about life, about people, about friendships and relationships and about what it's like to be a fighter.

There, there now. Aren't you glad you bought that extra box of tissues? And maybe, maybe you can send a prayer up for him. You may not know him but take my word for it - Nick may not lift many weights these days but he's by far one of the strongest men I know.