This week, many people mourned the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman. Tributes to both men filled social media. While I wasn’t a big Bowie fan, I learned Mr. Bowie influenced a number of musicians whose work I enjoy, so his death affected me in an indirect way.
I had the great pleasure to see Mr. Rickman on stage in two different plays, and I have long enjoyed his films. He was one of my “litmus tests” for films. That is, if he was included in the cast, I assumed it was likely worth my time to see. His passing really stunned me. I thought we’d have decades more work to enjoy.
The great baseball player Monte Irvin also died this week. He was a Negro League standout and one of the earliest black players in the major leagues. He also mentored the great Willie Mays.
The literary world also lost poet C.D. Wright, who was a 2004 MacArthur Fellow and a member of the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. While I’m not as familiar with her work as I’d like to be, I know she influenced a number of other writers.
All of this serves as a reminder that we don’t know how much time we have. The author and blogger Chuck Wendig posted eloquently about this on his blog yesterday, and I’m taking his reminder to heart. Time to buckle down and get back to my writing.
Ruth F. Simon 