Sad news...

I feel like deaths seem to come in waves. People say threes, but in my experience sometimes it's threes, sometimes it's seventeens. Well, maybe not deaths overall - because, let's be honest, everyone dies -but maybe sudden deaths. I didn't know him, but a friend of a friend of mine died in a rather tragic manner, he was surfing over at Stone Harbor/Avalon when he had a heart attack, at least from what the article I read said - AT THE AGE OF 32. Really scary. My friend is obviously really distraught over it, and I just feel horrible for him, I know what it's like to lose a friend so suddenly. Sometimes you get to crying over little things and then sometimes your mind plays tricks on you and you feel like they just went on vacation, that they'll return your call. Then you wake up and realize they're not going to show up, and it happens all over again. I feel like I did it with my cousin Laura forever - I'd go to send out an email and consciously want to include her on a CC. I'd scroll through my phone and see her name and tell myself there was a reason to still keep the number in my phone. I kept that number in for at least three years, then when I lost my phone I got upset because I didn't have the number written down. It's amazing how the little things get to you when someone dies so young and so suddenly.

I also got an email today from someone I went to UGA with that really kind of hit me hard - those of you that were in the art program may remember Bill Marriott, a great professor who taught Painting and Drawing...I learned SO much about creativity in his class. I was really saddened to learn that he died in a fire at his house in Athens just yesterday. He had retired a few years ago, but what I remembered most is the fact that while he really pushed every single one of his students, every compliment he gave you was genuine and hit the nail on the head. You lived for his compliments, because you really felt talented when he gave them. His classes were easily some of the best education I ever received, but he made every class FUN. I had him for drawing and remember saying that I'd take that same class over and over again if I had to, everything just clicked and everyone felt like THAT CLASS was the reason they were willing to take that tough road down the Lamar Dodd School of Art. He knew - KNEW - great art, and I wouldn't doubt it if one of Athens' greatest art collections went up in the fire as well. I remember running into him on campus, and he asked me why I wasn't around the art school anymore. I told him that I had changed majors, and I'll never forget the look on his face, I felt so horrible about it. He encouraged me to come back, and offered his help if I was worried about portfolio review. I still wish I had done so. When I left the corporate world, I kind of wanted to track him and a few other professors down, but never quite got around to it. Man, Athens just isn't the same.