RIP: To remember those lost to us, whether close or at large

[AmLitHist]

One of the most brilliant minds in his field, comedian Carl Reiner, aged 98. His work from the Sid Caesar and Dick Van Dyke shows still holds up.

[mamselle]

++1

He was one of the first names of a writer for a TV show that I remembered...I realized his input had something to do with the solidity of the actors' work...he gave them good material to work from and let them go ahead and do it.

M.

[hmaria1609]

The great British actor Sir Ian Holm:
https://tellyvisions.org/2020/06/23/remembering-sir-ian-holm
The accomplished actor performed on stage, TV, and movies.

[secundem_artem]

Grant Imahara from Mythbusters.  Dead from an aneurysm at age 49.  He made nerds and science look cool.  He got paid to do what every teenage boy wants to do - blow stuff up.  He also built stuff but he filled the deep need for destruction built into teenage boy's DNA.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/arts/television/grant-imahara-dead.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

[jimbogumbo]

Grant Imahara from Mythbusters.  Dead from an aneurysm at age 49.  He made nerds and science look cool.  He got paid to do what every teenage boy wants to do - blow stuff up.  He also built stuff but he filled the deep need for destruction built into teenage boy's DNA.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/arts/television/grant-imahara-dead.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

I'm pretty juvenile, but have never been into blowing stuff up. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I really enjoyed the way Grant (and Kari and Tory) measured stuff. That is what I really like about the guy on Youtube (don't have the reference at hand) who tried to determine which bird feeders could fend off squirrels. My wannabe engineering granddaughter am I are enthralled by his channel.

RIP to Grant indeed.

[mamselle]

I've just heard, belatedly, of a good, dear friend's death.

RIP Rupert.

I'll have to return to Vezelay for you, I'd always hoped you would do it yourself.

M.

[AmLitHist]

Representative John Lewis, age 80, from cancer. A humble giant of conscience.

[Harlow2]

My wonderful dog walker and then cat sitter (for almost a decade) about whom I cared very much, and one other,  both in the same week.

[mamselle]

Condolences to all who are grieving, including those for whom a significant anniversary is looming.

M.

[AmLitHist]

Olivia de Haviland, aged 104, in Paris.  Several news outlets ran photos of her riding a bicycle on her July 1 birthday.   

The films she did with Errol Flynn are still wonderful to see (esp. as the gutsy niece of the governor in Captain Blood, made when she was only 18 or 19). She's about the last one left of Old Hollywood.  Rest in peace.

[sinenomine]

Olivia de Haviland, aged 104, in Paris.  Several news outlets ran photos of her riding a bicycle on her July 1 birthday.   

The films she did with Errol Flynn are still wonderful to see (esp. as the gutsy niece of the governor in Captain Blood, made when she was only 18 or 19). She's about the last one left of Old Hollywood.  Rest in peace.

An absolute favorite.

[apl68]

Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of Karen, our library's former part-time janitor.  Karen had not had an easy time of it.  She had a good education and did pretty well with her husband for some years.  Then they fell on hard times.  Their daughter went off the rails.  When I knew her, Karen was serving as the single mother to her teenage granddaughter.  Our local economy being what it had become, she was having to get by cleaning houses and serving as our part-time library janitor. 

Thanks to care and frugality, and some help from their church, Karen was able to give her granddaughter a good life.  Somebody set them up with a house to live in.  Karen was well-read, and encouraged her girl to take pleasure in reading.  She was good at making low-cost fun and craft stuff.  She was an interesting person to talk to.  She was a friend as well as a staff member.

Four years ago, two youths broke into her house early in the morning and shot Karen and her granddaughter.  Karen died.  The granddaughter played dead until the assailants left, then made her way to a nearby police station.  The bullet that lodged in her neck only just missed killing her.  It's still there--the doctors determined that it was too dangerous to remove.  An uncle and aunt in another state took her in.  She has been doing okay.

Karen and her granddaughter were two white women living in an overwhelmingly black neighborhood.  The youths who gunned them down were black.  Ostensibly it was a robbery, but they took very little.  There was very little to steal (They took a cell phone, which was immediately traced and led to their arrest.  It was a very open-and-shut case).  Their targeting of the only white household in the neighborhood...well, it's hard to believe it was a coincidence.  Had the skin colors of victims, attackers, and neighborhood been reversed, this would without a doubt have been labeled a hate crime, and gotten national headlines for weeks.  But the victims were white, so it was nothing but a run-of-the-mill home invasion.

I wish everybody here could have seen Karen's funeral.  The crime shocked and appalled our whole community.  There was no race-baiting or rioting.  Black and white members of the community came together to mourn and celebrate the life of a sister in Christ who had become a victim of this world's wickedness.  Karen's pastor preached a sermon from Proverbs chapter 24:

"Do not lie in wait against the dwelling of the righteous, O wicked man.  For though the righteous fall seven times, yet will he rise, but the wicked will fall into disaster. 
"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, or be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased.
"Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the wicked;
"For there will be no future for the evil man: the lamp of the wicked will be put out."

The pastor spoke of how we can't know why God allowed such a crime to befall somebody who had spent a difficult life trying to do nothing but good.  What we did know is that Karen knew and served Jesus, and so is now safe from all evil.  Those of us who are left behind are the ones with responsibility--responsibility to thank God for Karen and her life, to care for her granddaughter who survived her, and to extend forgiveness and prayer toward those who murdered her, in hopes that they will come to Jesus and escape the just wrath of God for their actions.  It was an uplifting time for all of us who were there.

Somehow in the last couple of  years it has become controversial to say "All lives matter."  But they do.  Karen's life mattered for a great deal.

[Harlow2]

Two in one week: A dear colleague and the mother of my son's significant other.  These follow the two from several weeks ago.

[ab_grp]

I found out that my uncle passed away a few days ago (peacefully).  It has hit me a little harder than I expected.  He was not a spry young chicken by any means (in his 80s) but always seemed so vital and strong to me.  Still, it was bound to happen eventually.  He was my dad's "Irish twin" of sorts, although my dad was born a year and a day after him, so I supposed that does not technically count, although they were always very close.  They lost their sister to an unfortunate accident before I was born and their younger brother when I was in my early 20s.  My dad passed away about 20 years ago, and my uncle, the oldest, was the last of their group.  It's weird to think about.  My uncle was an interesting guy.  He had a lot of his body replaced due to a severe accident a long time ago but was a power lifter and, as far as I know, remained one up until not too long ago.  But, my aunt (absolute love of his life) passed away a few years ago, and I guess it was his time to join her.  I was just thinking about him last week and wish I had reached out.  Too late, per usual, but at least it seems to have brought the family back into touch, at least temporarily.

[notmycircus]

Condolences, ab_grp.