Susan Bartoletti was "a billion stars packed inside a diminutive body with a blazing smile that lights dark places, she's riding her Moped home and ... a car doesn't see her ... and the world changes in an instant."
Elmo Weeks was "an unassuming hero who was always there when nobody else wanted to be ... when fathers abandoned their sons ... and death was a way of life."
Both were special people who touched thousands and when I wrote about them ... thousands read, reacted, responded and realized loss is real.
Guardian Angels, Little Gay Dogs, Cat Ladies and Carnivals of Friends don't match the interest in the loss of loved ones.
Neither do living with little girls, Beloved Back Decks, the pungent smell of the Marsh or the sloppy kisses of the Ocean to the Shore.
Or the way I dress, stories from way back when, "Clothing Optional" movements and, definitely, anything political.
Loss of life, be it tragic or anticipated, is a different matter.
It makes me wonder.
When we go to sleep at night, my favorite author Frederick Buechner says, we surrender control of everything believing we'll wake again.
Even when dreams, either good or bad, interrupt, sleep wins until it too, surrenders control.
Sleeping then is sort of practicing for death.
Most believe we'll wake again though the world may be entirely different when we do.
Some sad folks "know" that when you go to sleep ... it's over.
I'm not certain anything's over.
Ever!
