Dear dear John,

Few like you ever grace most of our lives.

How many lives did you touch? Thousands and thousands. How generous were you to all of us, with time and advice and sympathy and money and good will and plain old help? How many new places did you take us? How many of us did you shepherd through our transitions into and through adulthood? How good a friend were you?

How immeasurably poorer all of us would be without having known you. It's hard to imagine our lives without you. There's a big hole left; we're trying to fill it with memories and shared experiences. If only you could be back for a second, just long enough for us to say this.

Bye, John,

Gretchen