12 6 ( >> 8QqEy!T=. The site's critics consensus reads: "Our Friend's occasionally frustrating approach to dramatizing its fact-based story is often offset by a trio of starring performances led by a never-better Jason Segel. ( ( A few seconds later, as I tried to towel off, he called again: "Hurry.". The sensitivity of these performances, particularly from Affleck and Segel, offers a reckoning on sincere friendship and the limits of devotion that remains with the viewer, long after the days of waiting and the years of pain have finally come to an end. ( Hid money from the IRS. Where Are Our Friend's Matthew Teague and Dane Faucheux Now? Matthew Teague is a journalist whos traveled to remote corners of the world for stories. /ColorSpace /DeviceRGB In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. ( ( I have the way the surgeon's voice shook. ( Nicole rallied. ( So we stood watching her for a couple minutes. When there's an infection or some other foreign thing in the body, the flesh works to eject it, forming tunnels to the surface. ( /Size 18 He started conspiring against me, or so I suspected. Matt Teague Lost His Wife, But Discovered Beautiful Friendship, in Our Friend By Jacob Sahms Matt Teague experienced the beauty of love and marriage and the devastating tragedy of terminal cancer as it ripped through his wife Nicole almost a decade ago. However, as Nicole's condition worsens, Dane decides to remain with them, taking on many household duties. ( _Politics with Charles P. Pierce An insider's look at all the politics you can stomachand some you can't. The Politics Blog with Charles P. Pierce began in 2011, and has on nearly every weekday sinceand many weekends besidesbeen home to some of the most incisive, honest, funny, perceptive, historically literate, and often-cathartic political journalism in America. ( [12], Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of 113 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.3/10. ( The friend essay by matthew teague, essay about outing with friends /Pages 10 0 R After Hollywood optioned his devastating essay about his dying wife, Matthew Teague vowed the movie would do right by her. And he never left. ( ( 0J4j*P>}~ ( "mmWIxzy =lvl/^G^s|P|bc&~ow <=5m: F0>\G'1rla 'DAj0LCU:" 4JK0-y1.C^90| U4cE=MMqRpGeU[e+TV ,u`j/;0S@1 0@5u1cc7ie;=C[J?bpRc>\N0fe=Ln%XCtL''UvBk1@]V('*0ibJJb /MediaBox [ 0 0 960.75 663 ] There were a lot of people feeling a lot of things. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Matt's article won an award in Esquire magazine and that he and his daughters remain in Fairhope. ( And then she burst into tears. ( With each decline and rise, she became more manic. 2. Then I would repack new pieces of ribbon into the holes, folding them in, spiraling them inside her, while she wept and begged me to just skip it, please, this one time. ( ( ( Each night, though, I lay down beside her, she would tear into me for hours, propelled by anger and fear and Dilaudid. And what's really weird? ( "Combined. It was just something I did. I could offer no arguments; I could not say "That's dangerous" or "Please don't use the girls against me.". /DecodeParms << /Quality 65 >> Delayed because of the pandemic, the film, now titled Our Friend, will now debut Friday in theaters and on demand. Popular Posts. MWbREy-8Qp=bqNWRp=RPhEyo.Q^[Jh-fTf {T&q\ 9+ 6s>6'yUp3Qf{uY"Q*:e4]P_0kH$4\,};E|g}z gPIV`*^$#VyHG}Wxx O~n/[=z\cF:f&e!9g|,Y\F ( We would drive up to the foothills of the Appalachians and spend a couple days hiking. "We are going away for a couple of days," he said. ( BY MATTHEW TEAGUE Sometimes at night, Nicole would wake howling and sweating, with a twist in her bowels. ( Her impending death stripped our relationship of every external measure of fairness. Those sentiments were trueshe carried herself with courage, and love, and poisebut when we were alone, she cut me without mercy. ( I turned its amber display to face the wall, but that didn't help; I lay there doing the math, calculating how many milliliters of fluid remained until she needed more. THE CANCER was EVERYWHERE, ANDTHEPARTS OF DYING THAT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT WERE ABOUT TO START. Nicole's friends and family visit with her one last time. ( Based on a true story, screenwriter Brad Ingelsby adapted Our Friend from the article "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word" by Matthew Teague. ( Our Friend movie review & film summary (2021) | Roger Ebert ( /Type /Page ( When that didnt work (I realized Im too close to this, he said) he signed on as an executive producer and worked closely with the writer Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back) to craft a film that both depicted the realities of death and celebrated the life that came before. ?! Matthew Teague - IMDb In 2015, journalist Matthew Teague published a piece in Esquire that detailed the worst time in his life. The girls started leaping from the rock into the deepest water at its base, and then climbing up and jumping again. w !1AQaq"2B #3Rbr ( A half dozen college-aged women had climbed onto rocks jutting from the top of the falls, and while we watched they started taking off their clothes. ( ( Matthew Teague always heard that if he wanted to be a writer, he needed to live in New York City. I crawled into the bathroom and curled around the base of the toilet, shaking and weeping. ( To this day, he receives impassioned, heartbreaking letters. I think I've hung on to the sensation of the hospital floor and being lifted away from it because it captures everything that followed in the next two years. Review: 'Our Friend' Is Terrified Of Its Own Source Material /ID [<851da6f6d0880f56f177687b349df516><851da6f6d0880f56f177687b349df516>] ( ( I still have a few memories. Another backpacker recognizes his potential suicidal behavior and offers support. "In it, the globetrotting journalist focused on a personal story far removed from his usual international beat, recounting the unwavering and selfless support he and his late wife, Nicole, had received, during her terminal illness, from the best buddy they shared in common, Dane Faucheux.Under the slightly altered title "Our Friend" (Gravitas Ventures), Teague's award-winning piece comes to the screen as an emotionally wrenching but ultimately uplifting drama.Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby treat tragic events in a spare, matter-of-fact manner that magnifies their impact on viewers. It's written about a friend of mine. ( Dane and I stayed up late watching television every night. Nx4Au& ,USh^e1#miUO9>V_fKyBK.=89TUho.$ ' ~4QY&)m3*TUI++c(#IUvvV>{od*]/ul(;bv0^h&HT(kZi%7qprs@ 7:IccIP IcpA pkr=BW#%"R2 Gz EVus 2\c: oA!.d9v2[EuGj QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE QE ~( Almost all of that year is lost to me. Then she graduated to Dilaudid, which is seven times stronger than morphine and ran on a continuous pump around the clock, alongside a terrifyingly powerful drug called fentanyl. (The family still lives in the same house. ( September 9, 2014 Nicole Rolin Teague, age 36, a resident of Fairhope, AL, passed Tuesday, September 09, 2014. He burned through his weeks of vacation time, visiting the hospital during the day and sleeping at our house each night. ( 'The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word', an autobiographical piece by Matthew Teague published in Esquire magazine in 2015, describes the two years between his wife Nicole's cancer diagnosis and her [] Sometimes hours later, sometimes weeks. You believe that he's the type of guy who would upend his entire life and move to Fairhope, Alabama to take care of his friends, simply because he knew they needed him. ( endstream Haldol was designed as an antischizophrenic drug in the 1950s, at the peak of the mental-institution boom in America. endobj He moved to the edge of the rocks to jump, and I found myself on my feet, clapping and cheering and wishing the sun would stop setting, and these young women would never age or fall ill or die, and Dane could hang there in space for the rest of time, a portrait of readiness and compassion. << "For your girls," he said. Months to live. V 2aeb zKlA ( Part II will describe alternative approaches that may offer a more efficient method of analyzing academic freedom within the First Amendment context. And unlike Dane, I had not worked out in ages. "[13] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". ( She is survived by her husband, Matthew Teague; daughters, Molly and Evangeline Teague, all of Fairhope; Father, Raymond Rolin of Atmore, AL; mother, Mary Smith of Pensacola, FL; sisters, Megan Gordon and Hillary Rolin, both of Bay Minette, AL. ( The film had its world premiere under its original title The Friend at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2019, and was released on January 22, 2021, by Gravitas Ventures. The Motion Picture Association rating is R -- restricted. Finally, when she tried to send money to someone in Iraq, I changed our accounts without telling her. Eye - 3 March 2023. It was a routine death in every sense. When he found one, he explained our situation to the veterinarian, and after some testing she blurted, "I'm so sorry, but this dog has cancer and I think she's going to die. ( Despite spending years in newsrooms and understanding the role of critics, this particular critique rings as unfair. Instead I said, "We don't know how deep the water is.". The next morning, I found the brick of weed in the right spot, wrapped in clear plastic, and on top of it, the day's mail. ( She was Creek Indian, and I had never seen her cheekbones so proud, her eyes so defiant. Dane remains close to the Teague family and marries in 2019. ( ( Yet, he hasnt given up on Hollywood, either. "b1T75G m gIA!VPVf's.14f=B8Ch zQZ#dnTi$X8$D$I5A,@%*8qfIXk- r%ZqIG,V_FV!4HArHt-Hzy a'+8L]9)$gUxIP:)#jR"L$=$L# j7!^:s^P;]g+ "ieBL$:?V2$eu*'ask|':Z?(xuBH-D)I*?cC6 The cancer was everywhere, and the parts of dying that nobody talks about were about to start. ( It's a small-scale human story, precious few of which make it to film these days. x+4337U0 B33c0a o, ( Our Friend is a 2019 American biographical drama film directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Brad Ingelsby, based on Matthew Teague's 2015 Esquire article "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word". Longreads Best of 2015: Under-Recognized Stories - Longreads I remade it, spooning on double the mayonnaise. ( The importance of cherishing the invaluable individuals in one's life is apparent in Matthew Teague's personal journey of his wife's battle against cancer and a genuine friendship. Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product. stream At the end of one trail, we found a waterfall and sat in the cool pool at its base, looking up at the cataract pouring down. Matthew Teague's award-winning personal essay, The Friend, attempts to depict the sheer ugliness of death he witnessed up close. We made a pact: If he married someday or if I remarried and one of our wives was diagnosed with cancer, the other would show up at the hospital and slip a knife between his ribs. Matt embraces Dane, expressing that simply saying "Thank you" isn't enough. ( All rights reserved. ( We spent that Christmas season in the hospital. 'Our Friend' Review: Lean on Me - The New York Times But his greatest work may be the essay he wrote in 2015 for Esquire magazine, titled The Friend. Teague dedicated some 6,000 words to the arduous two years he spent caring for his wife, Nicole, who learned she had terminal cancer at age 34. Teague's article is called "The Friend," while the movie is . /T 1042081 ( He left one day when the girls were at school. The National Journal has the story of a one proponent committed to furthering the use of the device in Colorado to prevent teenage pregnancies. "She needs antipsychotics.". Kat struggles to understand Dane's loyalty to the Teague family after weeks turn into months, and they break up. But in my physical depletion, I discovered what Dane had known all along: My mind felt sharper and was more hopeful than it had been in months. Simpson's Social Circle, What No One Could Tell Me About Male Breast Cancer, Charleston Shooting: We Need to Talk About This. ( We told stories about how we would both be old men, drooling and incontinent, and Nicole would shuffle in to demand a mayonnaise sandwich. On Christmas, Nicole ruptures her abdomen, and Dane is left to watch over the girls. Tell me.". ( The Friend Published by Columbia University Press 2016 The Friend From the book The Best American Magazine Writing 2016 Matthew Teague https://doi.org/10.7312/asme16957-013 Cite this Share this You currently have no access to view or download this content. One morning, she staggered into the kitchen, shocking us all, and announced that she planned to make eggs for the girls. ( Since we had met, when she was still a teenager, I had loved her with my whole self. Technology started to loom over our lives in a new way. I had just come from a room full of people who had never read the essay, didnt know anything about the essay and just took the movie on its own terms and found it to be very moving, he said. The night after Christmas, our pug, Gracie, threw up something black and putrid on the floor at his feet. Judge Denies Stand Your Ground Defense In Cantonment Gas Station Murder, Students Learn About Ag During Northviews Fresh From Florida Event (With Gallery), Body Found In Cantonment Along East Kingsfield Road, Escambia County Officially Approves Funding For ERECs North Escambia Fiber Internet, Wanted Sex Offender Captured After Tip From NorthEscambia.com Reader, Tate High School Names Students Of The Month, Escambia Woman Claims $1 Million Lottery Scratch-Off Prize, Laziness Encouraged: No Mow March Promotes Pollinators in the Panhandle. Realizing that Matt is overwhelmed, Dane takes him hiking. It's a devastating confession of the last years of his wife . As 2013 closes and Nicole becomes sicker, they decide to tell their daughters and Dane listens on in sorrow as the girls cry. She was unrecognizable with hatred. ( With Dane's help, they reconcile their relationship. /Resources << /XObject << /X0 16 0 R >> >> Dane helped the girls adjust to an endless life without their mother, but the days without Nicole were empty, and he wanted to find work. ), Downloaded on 4.3.2023 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/asme16957-013/html, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Library and Information Science, Book Studies, Introduction: Going Native: An Eight-Minute Read, Fixing the System: An Interview with President Obama on Prison Reform, What Is Code? [6], Filming began on February 19, 2019, in Fairhope, Alabama. ( A few times Molly got up and went out to join him. Too cowardly to sit and bear it, I would curl in the fetal position on our porch swing, where she could not find me. << ( Titled 'The Friend,' the article told the heartbreaking story of his beloved wife Nicole Teague's diagnosis of terminal cancer, and how their best friend, Dane, became an indispensable addition to their family. ZANaEPKHx:Pjpiyrp:O3[ 8(=ij[x ?g_xm[8ywbXXNIv ns Today Teague still bristles at this criticism. ( ( Are people going to get a chance to see it?. "[17], Sheila O'Malley, writing for Roger Ebert's film criticism website, gave it a 3 star rating. Weeks. When Matthew Teague's wife started dying from cancer, his friend came to help out and ended up moving in. The Friend by Matthew Teague - Esquire ( "No," she said again, disgusted. Outside, their best friend Dane Faucheux keeps the children company. ( 'Images show us something that speaks to our condition.'. On that day, he stopped as he climbed into his car. Movie set in Fairhope is true story of love, friendship and death ( Matthew Teague Longform endstream ( Yet, if you see it onscreen, people are going to throw up their popcorn and run from the theater.. /Prev 1042070 Nicole tried to lift her head and look at her belly. Magazine | The Friend and took off his shirt. He had driven from New Orleanswe were living in a small town called Fairhope, Alabamato stand guard for hours in the hallway outside Nicole's room so that she could sleep. Focusing on six states - Arizona, Georgia . They had two little girls. Her gesture of kindness, plus an unexpected voicemail from the Teague family, renews Dane's will to live. I have the way the surgeon's voice shook. ( We spent every nightevery night for an entire summerwatching the living dead shuffling eternally into frame just before being dispatched to the afterlife by some hero. NEW YORK (CNS) -- In 2015, Esquire magazine published Matthew Teague's article "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word. Boiling, wiping, filtering. ( ( ( OllGr$*@!ta qWY6:zTE{ ", The way dying looks, or so I expected, was like this: A small group of friends and family gather around the patient, watching as she draws and releases her final breath. The Friend, adapted by Brad Ingelsby, tells the true story of Nicole (Johnson) and Matthew Teague (Affleck), whose friend Dane (Segel) puts his own life on hold and moves into the Teague family . I moved to switch off the gas and Nicole glared. ( /Root 13 0 R By The Numbers: How Many Calls Did Escambia Fire Rescue Answer Last Month? "I see it now," she said. It annoyed me. ( ( ( "The Friend." When Matthew Teague's wife started dying from cancer, his You are both. I confessed to him one night that a dark fantasy had flickered through my mind earlier involving a spoon and mayonnaise. It never doesnt hurt, but I think the longer you are in this creative world you learn to metabolize the pain more quickly.. Q1@ OllGr$*@!ta qWY6:zTE{ >> Why was there so little milk in the refrigerator? The entry-point was about his wife's cancer-diagnosis and untimely death, but the essay's focus was the way that one of their. ( ( With vast discretion, he didn't try to pick me up from the floor this time. But human bodies defy sterility, with our holes and our sloughing and our fingernails and our wet places. And he never left. [18], Jason Segel, Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck To Star In The Friend', "Jake Owen is Headed To The Big Screen With Casey Affleck & Dakota Johnson", Gwendoline Christie Joins Dakota Johnson Drama The Friend'; Shoot Underway In Alabama On Hot-Seller For STX, Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson star in film being shot in Fairhope, "Toronto Film Festival: 'Joker,' 'Ford v Ferrari,' 'Hustlers' Among Big Premieres", "Toronto Title 'The Friend' Lands At Roadside Attractions And Gravitas Ventures , Will Hit Theaters In Fall", "The Friend Is a Radically Empathetic Cancer Drama", "Our Friend movie review & film summary (2021) | Roger Ebert", "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word" (Esquire article that served as source for film), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Our_Friend&oldid=1142353047, "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word", This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 23:12. Later, Nicole's lead nurse, Faith, sat down with me. No one ever told me the truth about it, not once. It's undignified. Her face relaxed. That one pump recorded more than twenty thousand milligrams poured into Nicole. There was nothing but love from that audience, Teague said. Her hands stopped, and I looked up to her face. Through long term ethnographic study of local and translocal DIY scenes, including shows, spaces, and touring practices, I reveal a plethora of reciprocal musical and extra-musical activities that enable the creation of alternative DIY worlds. The glare of public criticism has helped me be more aware of how frightening and helpless a story subject can feel, he said in a follow-up email. Dane had come to visit after Thanksgiving and never ended up returning home. ", The way it actually happened was like this: There was medical equipment blocking the way to our bathroom, so on the morning of September 9, 2014, I went upstairs to shower. Forever if he wanted. ?! Dane called me. ( ( [10] In January 2020, Roadside Attractions and Gravitas Ventures acquired distribution rights to the film. Dane continually found packages arriving on our front porchpackages of the most mundane items, like toilet paper or school notebooksand assumed I was ordering them. ( "I got this on my pillow," Dane said one night. ( ( /Contents 15 0 R For months, we tried to catch it with everything from colostomy bags to special gauzes to cloth diapers, but the stomach acid would burn through any adhesive and eventually started eating her flesh. Speaking Your Story: 1on1 with Matthew Teague (OUR FRIEND) - ScreenFish We discovered that Nicole was secretly ordering things online, clinging to her role as shopper. The nurses came and replaced Nicole's dressing. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. ( PDF The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word One day Dane touched my arm and I cried out, unsure of who he was. endobj ( You need this.". Dane returns home where he works as a manager at a sporting goods store and begins dating a woman named Kat. ( The film's celebration of love expressed in small gestures and its message that an individual's worth is not to be measured by professional success alone help to compensate for the complete, though unspoken, absence of faith in an afterlife among the characters. It had never occurred to him to do nothing. Something in me broke. On Thanksgiving, Dane, unhappy with his life, decides to backpack at the Grand Canyon without telling anyone where he is going. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. Judges Hear Appeal From Victim's Family In Adnan Syed Case. I touched her cheek and her eyes fluttered open. I juggled money because nobody would die if we didn't pay our taxes, so the hospitals and surgeons came first. 'Our Friend' Review: A Saintly Jason Segel Helps a Couple - Variety Matthew Teague's "The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word" tells the story of both those abstract concepts love and death through wrenching anecdotal experience. ( She was forcing me to have a talk with my daughters that would link cancer and death, and I wasn't prepared yet. ( ( One afternoon, a group of church ladies arrived. They had two little girls. I can only move one limb at a time." ( I was married. 'Our Friend' Movie True Story - Where Is Matthew Teague Today? - Esquire He basically packed his life up, a year and a half ago, and moved to Alabama to help his friend care for his wife who was dying (and did die) of ovarian cancer. In Vanity Fair, Katey Rich wrote that the film finds a more thoughtful way through the sort of story that often feels rote onscreen, regardless of how devastating it can be in real life. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is now hovering around 80 percent fresh. ( Matthew Teague, Writer: Our Friend. A crayon scrawl. But she asked me to meet her in the living room with a towel, scissors, and my beard trimmer. "Before this is over," she said, "you will long for it to end.". ( They stood looking at Nicole. ( In January 2019, it was announced Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel and Jake Owen had been cast in the drama film The Friend, with Gabriela Cowperthwaite directing from a screenplay by Brad Ingelsby, based upon an Esquire article by Matthew Teague. I just lay on the bed, unable to move. When Some Critics Reject the Film That's About Your Life ( ABSTRACT. The Friend Published by Columbia University Press 2016 The Friend From the book The Best American Magazine Writing 2016 Matthew Teague https://doi.org/10.7312/asme16957-013 Cite this M ost of September 17, 2012, has evaporated from my mind. ( 15 0 obj I told our family counselor, Julia, I knew things would get worse. ( ( ( The tiled floor of lifemorals, ethics, even lawsbecame a shifting and relative thing. I sent a photo of her to Dane, and a few minutes later he sent one back. ( I started avoiding bedtime. Johnson, Violet McGraw and Jason Segel as the Teagues friend, Dane Faucheux. Recognizing their need for help, Dane offers to stay with them for a few weeks. ( The months after Nicole died stretched and shrank and stretched again, like taffy. Afterward, we would sit in the dark for hours, sometimes in silence, but usually discussing the day's interactions with Nicole. As he walked out the door, he stopped to complete his argument. It was magnificent to behold. ( She looked up with wet eyes and smiled. We did it all. ( His wife was just thirty-four. When visitors came, though, we could see it reflected in their faces, or when her shirt slipped to the side, exposing her collarbone. ( ( He admonished me with profound compassion. Nicole had ovarian cancer, which had metastasized to her stomach, and she endured a series of physical insults that, taken individually, would have been shattering; a single trip to the chemo ward, watching what looked like antifreeze flow into her veins while the nurses offered me cheese crackers, would have changed my life forever. She drifted away on Haldol, an ocean measured in milliliters, no longer calling for food or water, which meant the volcano of her stomach stopped erupting. ( ( Would the film find a home with initial critical response so tepid? Dane said. ( It was a box-office bomb, only grossing $714,255 on a $10 million budget.[2][3]. So while the nurses watched and advised me, I started giving my wife the injections that would, in a sense, finish her life. In the early months of 2014, Dane and I cleaned ceaselesslythe house, the children, me, the medical equipment, Nicole herself. ( She had slept through the months of IV feeding and woke up pleasantly surprised that she could now fit into smaller clothes than ever before. The more visceral parts that, in part, made the essay so memorable were omitted: specifically Teagues role in the grotesque art of wound-packing and the physical horrors that accompanied it. It looked wrong, like something alien implanted under her skin. ( ", When she would emerge into one of her better periods, she would awaken, aghast at the way I was running the house. /O 14 ( ( We all tried to ignore the clear tube pumping feces up from her bowels and out her nose. Her stomach belched up a geyser of yellow crap, which flowed down her sides onto the bed. Our Friend vs. the True Story of Nicole Teague and Dane Faucheux Our Friend (2021) REEL FACE: REAL FACE: Dakota Johnson Born: October 4, 1989 Birthplace: Austin, Texas, USA Nicole Teague Born: June 26, 1978 Birthplace: USA Death: September 9, 2014, Fairhope, Alabama, USA (cancer) Casey Affleck Born: August 12, 1975 Birthplace: Nothing tasted right. ( As depicted here, for instance, her memorial service resembles a subdued cocktail party.The nonlinear storytelling, which lands here and there over more than a decade, feels awkward and somewhat distracting. After a few minutes, we noticed movement at the top of the waterfall. I could appeal to nothing, because nothing trumps dying. Each time she went down, doctors and nurses offered dire timelines. ( "How am I supposed to leave in peace?" ( Our Friend - Old Yorker Dane Faucheux and Nicole went to college together, and over the years Matt and Dane became as close as brothers. ( ( When I discouraged Nicole from somethingwhen I took away her car keys, or access to our accounts, or certain visiting hoursshe would go to online cancer forums and write posts about my choices.