Losses…
Vonda McIntyre passed away two weeks ago.  I found that it hit me rather hard, and didn’t want to blog about it for a while.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think I ever got to meet her.  And that’s remarkable, because, she was sort of always there. We were in the same field, we moved among the same people, were at the same conventions, often. On a panel opposite mine, perhaps, or on the other side of the room in a party; doing a reading at a time not convenient for me to come in and listen.
She was Guest of Honor at the 2015 Worldcon in Spokane; I was there, too, but did I paths ever actually cross? I don’t know…
Our books appeared together in the Feminist Futures Story Bundle, and there was a certain amount of emails back and forth among the participants and packager. But that’s not real contact.
I guess that’s the thing making me especially sad: that I never got the chance. We were not close… but might we have been? I’ll never know. But her books are still here.
And then, a few days ago, it was Gene Wolfe that we lost.
Tor.com has the best tribute to him and his work. I can’t really add to it. And his books are also still here.
And then, of course, Notre Dame. You’ve heard about the fire, I’m sure.
But the good news there is that it was not completely destroyed. When I first heard about it, it looked like the entire cathedral was gone, and I was astonished at how devastated I was.
Yes, I am an atheist — but religion did not build Notre Dame; human beings did.  Human minds, human hands.  An as an atheist, it’s the human spirit that I find holy, and every object of beauty we create is sacred.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156550462216715&set=a.273906536714&type=3&eid=ARAztYQ35Z52mVA4DZvHT0lOpBYc1_T_Rq0WX_JluMgVyHK-cryvsqtkfxqIQ15gmo-ccM-4yzp-8fvV
Human beings… well, we don’t last.  But the things we make — they go on after us.  That’s what they’re for, I think.
(next post: non-sad things. I promise.)