21st Annual E-Money Year in Review: 2025 Edition
Well, the first thing you learn is how far you can go with no gas in the tank
And the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night Thatās from Cold At Night, a Mountain Goats song released this year that pretty much sums up my 2025. This year was by far the most momentous of my life, for both positive and negative reasons. Three events in particular wouldāve been the most noteworthy of all in any given year, and they all happened in a span of about 130 days. The third, and by far the most impactful, was the death of my dad on September 10th. I could write for days about the impact this had on me. I could write for days about how I have been grappling with the loss I feel and the lack of his tangible presence in my life anymore. But I think if I had to pick one aspect of his death that was the most difficult to deal with⦠it wasnāt his death itself. It was the process in which he was dying. He went into the hospital in July, after generally feeling weaker in the preceding months. I had told him he should go to Urgent Care, until one day I was at work downtown and got a message from Donny telling me that Dad had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I rushed to St. Clair, then rushed around picking up some things for Dad from home, before heading back to the hospital, then again leaving when my Dad said he wanted us to go. While driving on Route 28 to go pick up some furniture, he called me to tell me heād been diagnosed with Leukemia. Over the next month, he was transferred to UPMC Shadyside, where he was in and out of the ICU. It was absolutely terrible to watch. He was clearly uncomfortable. There was nothing I could do to help. In that moment, all you want to do is be the most helpful you can, for both him and the rest of my family. His condition diminished. Sometimes he would call me on the phone and leave voicemails that were nonsensical. He wasnāt the same person I had known my whole life. After a month in the hospital, he was released so that he could go on hospice care at home. He actually did seem a little better at first, but that quickly subsided and in his final days, he spent a lot of time sleeping. After about two weeks in hospice, he passed away in his sleep. I had been preparing for this moment for a long time. He wasnāt in amazing shape and was getting up there in age. But he was still a little young to die (74). The things about his death that I do feel fortunate about were that I made sure that I didnāt have any regrets. I made sure to tell him I loved him, and he said the same to me. In his last weeks, I made sure to treat him with respect, and went into every interaction with him intending to treat him like a person, with full agency and personality - not just a patient in a hospital bed. When it came time for his funeral, I felt a lot of pressure. You only have one funeral, so I wanted to make sure his reflected the kind of person he was. I wrote a eulogy that I think shined a light on the kind of person he was. I think we honored his memory. I think heād be content with the way we handled it. It feels trivial to talk about anything else that happened this year in light of my dadās passing. It overshadowed everything else. Despite the fact that my dad didnāt even get sick until late July, his death still seems to cast a shadow over the entire year. But it was indeed preceded by 2 monumental events that happened right before it. In fact, just 16 days before my dad went to the hospital, I closed on a house. Buying a home felt like such a huge accomplishment. I was proud. In retrospect, Iām so glad that my dad was able to come over to my house a couple times to see it before he went into the hospital. He really liked the house, and Iām glad for that. Now, his legacy I think will live on in my desire to try and fix things around the house. It does make me sad though, because heās not around to see it. Thereās a light fixture Iām having trouble installing. But Iām determined to get it figured out, because it was one of the last things we talked about. I know Iām gonna break down when I finally get it done.
And if the house wasnāt enough of a big deal⦠it was preceded a couple months prior by me running my first marathon. I finished the Pittsburgh Marathon in May with a time of 4:30:51. It is hard to overstate just how much work this required. Training involved running 4 times a week for about 4 months. The feeling I had when I crossed the finish line is one I will never forget. I did run the first half a little too fast, though, which meant that the entire second half felt terrible. I intend to run it again in 2026, and my goal this time is to train better so that I can enjoy it more. And it wouldnāt hurt to improve that time a little bit. My dating life is still stagnant. But given what was going on in the second half of the year, it didnāt exactly feel like a priority. From starting marathon training at the very end of 2024 all the way through my dadās death nearly 9 months later⦠the first ¾ of this year was spent dealing with one challenge after another. But another Mountain Goats lyric is one that also resonates with me when I think about this year. We show great loyalty to the hard times we've been through.


















