mary e. pearson

It is just all too much to comprehend. Just when you think something like this could never happen again. It does. No questions, no rants, no words are adequate. Maybe they will all come later. Right now, like everyone else, I am grieving for this community and the families.

I was watching the news this morning and as they always do at this time of year, they had a retrospective of famous people who had died in the past year, people who have changed our lives in a myriad of ways. I always feel sad to see how many we have lost, many prematurely, sad for the hole they have left, but glad for the way they changed the world, my world, your world, in some way, and glad that they are remembered.

But there are also the unfamous who have left us, those who are not included on a televised retrospective, but who have changed our worlds. I lost my brother-in-law this year. He was a fine man. In the thirty-three years I knew him, I never once heard him say an unkind word about anyone. Truly. He certainly was dealt more than his fair share of troubles, but I never heard him complain. He was soft-spoken, easy to please, and had a work ethic like I’ve never seen before. He didn’t just change his family’s world, or my world, but he changed yours too, even though you didn’t know him. He is like many of the unfamous, who keep this planet on an even keel in their own quiet anonymous way.

He was a humble, quiet man, so I will remember him here in the same way he lived–anonymously. But he will always be remembered.

Here is to the unfamous in my life and in your lives who have left us in 2005. The world may not know them, but they changed the world nonetheless.

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