I learned of Mr. Vonnegut’s passing yesterday. I am still amazed that no one called to gently tell me even though I can’t think of who that someone might have been.

Mr. Vonnegut has been an important part of my world for a long while now. I can still feel everything I felt on discovering that there was someone out there who could feel/see/think/write “this” on reading “Cat’s Cradle” in a high school satire class. (Thank you Mr. Pebble.) Since then I have read every book published by Mr. Vonnegut. And some of these more than once.

I always knew that I would sorely miss him when he was gone. I can’t believe that this day is already here. There was so much more I wanted to hear from him. So much more.

Mr. Vonnegut has been my favourite author since “Cat’s Cradle”. Favourite. And, I loved knowing that he was out there looking at the same world as me. I felt that things were better in this world with someone like him watching it, writing about it, upset about it, wanting for it, appreciating it “anyway”. He was one of my heroes. And I only need the fingers of hand to count those despite the number of saints that I too have met in my life.

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to know how deeply we take anyone else into our heart, our being. Mr. Vonnegut has always been oh so deeply in mine. My sympathies go out to his family and the lady at the post office and to all of us who were connected, whether we knew it or not, by the amazing Vonnegut-ism’s, those few words or sound bites that carry so much, that he gave us. He, along with his honoring of his Uncle Alex, will continue to be in all of my best moments because in those I think “If this isn’t nice, what is?”

So it goes.