For those people who have influenced my life and who are gone.

Cousin Lori went first. We were both 20, I was married and she single, working in Oregon. We hadn't seen each other for a decade, but I remember walking to the public pool with her and my brothers on hot Forest Grove afternoons (my family was visiting the Grandparents, her family lived nearby) to find some relief. I remember long days, the sun setting after 9pm. And I remember whispering in the corner with her, feeling like I had a sister, finally.

She was at her favorite local watering hole playing pool with friends. It was her turn to get the beers, so she went to the bar in the front just as a man came in through the door and shot the place up. She died instantly, a bullet through the base of her neck. Five other people died that night, and around sixteen were injured. My Uncle Kenny was so torn up about her death, he refused to have a funeral or a memorial service for her.

Her passing and my uncle's reaction to it made me understand that death and grief are powerful motivators, and that not everyone will react the same.

That same summer, 1980, saw a second death - not family, but close enough to fit him here. Mark Koci was a fun kid around my age. We met through California Ballet Company, where his sister and I took classes. They were neighbors of sorts so at times we'd carpool. At the tender age of 16, we shared a first kiss at sunset on a beach (a bunch of us were there from the ballet company). He was a promising photographer, and my dad had bonded with him while teaching him how to work a darkroom.

And then he was riding his bike in the beach cities around San Diego, with a big group of bikers - and a drunk driver hit him from behind. He died instantly. My father was devastated, and I was bewildered. Two young people so connected to me should not have died that year.

My grandfather Merle was a wizened old gnome of a man toward the end, fearful of being alone and yet stubborn enough to still climb ladders and clean out the rain gutters. His uniform was a pair of denim overalls and a plaid shirt, his bald head covered with a ball cap.

His garden was his pride, and he had overturned buckets scattered around so he could sit and water. He had brought his wife Hazel and their three children to Forest Grove, Oregon in 1937 from Shelby, Nebraska. They sold the farm, all the farming equipment, and fled the Dust Bowl for the rains and green of Oregon, joining other family and encouraging family left behind to come west. He worked at the canning factory, farmed, did odd chores to support his family.

He'd come in from cleaning out the gutters, sat at the kitchen table for lunch. His arthritis-gnarled hands curled around the cup of coffee, and when my grandmother turned away to answer the phone, silently he passed on, his last sight the wife he'd been married to for over sixty years.

I like to think I have a lot of my grandmother Hazel in me. She had been doing poorly - heart issues. But once Merle passed on, the strain of taking care of him lifted from her. She sold their house and moved into a small apartment, just right for her. Then she and her sister did some traveling - mostly to family in different states. They came to see me twice, the second time when my first child was 4 months old.

I remember I was nervous, and trying to get everything ready for dinner and the baby was crying and hubby was late and she laid her hand on my arm and said, "Don't fuss around, Chris. Don't fuss." I have a picture of her with Chet on her knee, and the look on her face is funny - like she knows he's breakable, but she'd just as soon not have him in her arms.

Hazel never met a craft project she didn't like. She could make any kind of doll, and I received dolls or stuffed animals or Barbie clothes every year at Christmas and for my birthday. In her 50s she wrote a family history, had it bound, and gave it to everyone in the family.

I have quilts she'd made, and quilt tops that I need to finish off. Even into her 80s she was sewing, arthritis and bad eyesight notwithstanding. Her daughter moved from Montana to Forest Grove to keep an eye out for her. When she passed on peacefully in her own bed, it was a bare month after she'd been a visitor in my home.

This is running long, I know. Bear with me.

There is Penny, a lovely woman I worked with for many years. Funny, smart, warm, she had three children and a fire-fighter husband. Diagnosed with breast cancer, she was cheerful, energetic, and in true Penny fashion, she beat the cancer. A couple years later, when it came back, it came with a vengeance. She was about to go into isolation for some procedure, when her youngest and only son was hit and killed while crossing the street in a cross walk.

The raw grief the family showed at his funeral was wrenching. Penny had postponed her procedure against her doctor's wishes. Less than two months later, Penny died. At her funeral the church was overflowing, and her daughters were composed, dignified, changed in two short months into young women.

Uncle Kenny. He'd been dead for a couple of months before I found out. My family isn't the best at communicating some things. I did hear about Uncle Lynn, Janie's husband. They'd moved back to Montana after grandma had died.

Too many dancers during the 80s passed away in the first wave of AIDS deaths. My heart still hurts for those lovely bright lights.

And then there's Scott. But that will have to be the next installment, for my heart is too full.

How much richer my life is, for having known you all. Peace.