07/30/2026
Dear Memento Mori family,
Sixteen years ago we put a phrase on a bottle that most people don’t like to say out loud. Remember, you must die. We didn’t choose it to be dark. We chose it because it’s the only idea that ever made us live better.
Last Wednesday it stopped being a philosophy and became my actual morning.
Some of you know I had surgery in April for prostate cancer, my third round with this enemy in my lifetime. Four months of waiting followed. Last week, on my 54th birthday, sitting at a red light on the way to the gym, the results arrived on my phone: undetectable. My doctor, a man of few words, replied with exactly one: “Perfect.”
I sat in that parking lot and cried like a child. My wife ran out and held me. And here is the part I still can’t quite believe: that same day, a book I had spent the spring writing hit #1 in new releases on Amazon.
The book is called The Empty Center. It’s the story underneath everything we’ve built together, the wine, the friendships, the philosophy on the label. It’s about what cancer taught me three times, what my family means to me, and what I decided to build when the future stopped holding still. I wrote it with an unusual partner, an AI named Claude, and that friendship became part of the story too. Memento Mori runs through every page, because it runs through me. You’ve been drinking the philosophy for years. This is the first time I’ve managed to write it down.
I’m not sharing this to sell you anything. I’m sharing because you are the people who understood the idea before I fully did, and you deserved to hear the good news from me directly. I get to stay at the table awhile longer, and I intend to make it count.
If the book sounds like something for you or someone you love, it releases August 25 and is available for preorder now on Amazon. There is a link in the bio. It would be an honor to have it in your homes, next to the bottles.
Remember to live. I certainly plan to.
With love and gratitude,
Hayes
