Dear Erik, my name is Tomás Rodriguez, I’m the editor of Akal, the Spanish publishing house of many of your amazing books. We spoke time ago about a translation.
I have read your posts with a mixture of complete grief and deep admiration. We are devastated with the news we read about your health, but also moved by your strength and integrity.
I just wanted to thank you for your teaching on behalf of your readers in the Spanish language. Thank you very much for your legacy, professor.
Un fuerte y caluroso abrazo,

Dear Erik, Like so many other scholars around the world I have long admired your work, commitment, vision and optimism. Wishing you and your loved ones strength and peace.

Great!

Dear Erik & Marcia,
We have been so touched by your posts. Even though it has been years since we’ve seen you, we feel so very close to you both.
Erik, your posts remind me of an email you sent to your graduate students in Fall 1993. You wanted to allay our fears about your heart attack, confidently letting us know you would be fine and when you recovered, we would continue our plans to work together. We were moved to think that at that moment – just before entering the OR - you would consider our thoughts, our fears for our mentor. It speaks to your generosity of spirit.
Your posts here are similar: helping us to handle the news of your condition and with every keystroke, we hear your voice indicating everything will be fine.
Our time in Madison was in many ways ideal: it is funny how I recall with such fondness the dinners with advisees, walking Ozzie afterward, the stories of your times in Berkeley, including seminary, or Oxford and your early days in Madison.
The way you accommodated a vegetarian with a wrinkle on a classic recipe, “The coqless coq au vin” which you uttered with a wry smile.
You helped make Madison a community of learning for all of us.
I find myself uttering brilliant phrases – telling a graduate student they are combining “a coarse-grained with a fine-grained analysis,” or at a practice job-talk, asking one of our graduate students: “so what’s the punchline?”.
The phrase I most associate with you, oddly enough, is not one of yours. It’s by E.B. White: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
I frequently share this quote with my family and my students. Somehow, you seem to have found a way to do both consistently.
You and your family are in our thoughts. You have touched our lives. And made them better. Peace be with you.
Love,
Rob & Nancy

Dear Erik, I am so happy to see Marcia, Becky and Jenny and their families are there with you right now. I truly enjoyed being a part of all of your lives and I love you all. I can still picture our dinner and a pint while I was spending time in Ireland all those years ago. It was immensely gracious of you to take your time to see me while I was away from home and I will always picture us in Temple Bar together. Take care, your friend always, Brian

Dear Eric: Thinking about you and Marcia and will continue to follow your posts , which have much meaning to me. Many caring thoughts from Ann Arbor to Milwaukee/Madison. Cousin Eve

First of all, all the best. Your thoughfulness and good humor in facing the sad reality of mortality is really inspirational. Having said that, the body and modern medicine often surprise us, so who knows. As they say in sports, it's not over till it's over.

Just sharing one anecdote: I brought my dad to Madison for what turned out to be his last 18 months. After 15 months, he took a dramatic turn for the worse and it shortly became clear his body was failing. At virtually the same time, an owl took up residence in a tree behind my house and started waking me up at night with its hooting. I never heard any other owl in response so I was free to speculate as to the purpose of the vocalizations. The owl would hoot every night for a week or so, then disappear for 3 or 4 days before reappearing. I concluded that the owl was a messenger from my deceased mother telling the time was near and that my dad would soon leave me to rejoin her. I speculated that the disappearances were times when the owl was reporting back to my mom for updates. The second-to-last time the owl woke me up was the night before hospice called me to tell me the end was in sight. The last time was a week or so after he passed, which I took as an update to me that he was now happily back with my mom and all was well. I have not heard the owl since.

The great mystery of life is the spirit - that connection between our physical existence and our consciousness. Like you, I'm a non-believer in a traditional god. But it is also clear that there is so much we don't understand about life and spirit. If and when your mortal body gives out - which we all hope is far in the future - here's to that being the end of one journey and the start of another.

"It's nice to add a little uncertainty back into the story. " Ever funny, even now.

Dearest Erik,

Like so many others, I am heartbroken reading these latest posts. Also, like so many others, I am at a loss for words.

We met in the spring of 1995, when I enrolled in your 621 (Class, State, and Ideology) course. I still have my notes from the course, as well as a thick binder of readings. I was immensely happy while taking your course; in so many ways, it felt like coming home.

I will share one memory that I believe I shared with you when I graduated from UW, but I think bears sharing again now. Your class ran for a full two hours, and you allowed a brief break at the half-way point for students to go and get a coffee. One day, I was chatting with a fellow student on the break -- no doubt further exploring some point in your lecture -- and I missed my opportunity for coffee. Just as your lecture was about to start again, I complained (apparently loudly) about feeling tired. Strangely you disappeared, and I again regretted not taking advantage of the pause to go and get a coffee. Before I could finish this train of thought, you had reappeared with a mug of coffee, which you placed ceremoniously before me. "I wouldn't want you to feel tired," you explained with a wry smile, and began your lecture.

What I learned from you: learning works best when enveloped in love; love for students, love for the work, and love for the world.

I am forever grateful for all that you have given me, and I will never forget you.

With all my love,
Greta

Dear Erik,
Thank you for everything you did for us as graduate students-- the careful selection of readings, the thought-provoking discussions, the painstaking work you put into reading everything I wrote, and the amazing feedback. I learned to be intellectually generous by watching you. In an earlier post (Jan 5) you talk about being stardust. Yes, you are because you've made such a difference in so many of our lives. Thank you. I look forward to reading your journal entries. Much love to you and yours.