When We Rise: The Light Shines in the Darkness ..‪.‬

--For Hugh Dragswolf, good friend, gone now. OUTSIDE, THE SNOW came down slow and soft, the same big snow they'd seen for the last few hours, everything white and new, the world like a dream. Shale sat with Drake in one of the big red booths at Steer Inn, waiting for food. Shale was 40, Drake 38, both a long way from competitive basketball days, yet in his mind Shale was lining up the seams of the ball to the form of his fingers. He saw the rim, the follow-through, the arm lifted and extended, a pure jumpshot with a clean release and good form. He saw the long-range trajectory and the ball on a slow backspin arcing toward the hoop, the net waiting for the swish. A sweet jumper finds the mark, he thought, a feeling of completion and the chance to be face-to-face not with the mundane, but with the holy.