Since this blog's name is a Bradbury reference, it seemed appropriate to come here and mark the day.

I don't have a lot to say today, other than I am so sad and it's a good day for ice cream. A pint of chocolate or vanilla topped with hot fudge. A good day for writing. A good day for reading some Bradbury.

I woke today to the news of Bradbury's passing. I went into the living room, crawled into the Coyote's lap and sobbed.

Like so many others who are mourning today, Bradbury was my literary father. My own father gave him to me when I was my children's age, setting me up for a love of fantastical fiction and dooming me to being a writer. And I will always bless my father and Bradbury for the gifts they gave me.

I am told there is this one thing I do well when I write. This thing that I do--I first got it from Ray. All those hours gorging on his fiction when I was still being cooked, as my friend Tim calls it.

Our writing ancestry, those writers we read and read and read when we were being formed in the writing womb, you can see echoes of them in our work. Just like you can see echoes of our biological ancestors in our features.

I am of an age where my writing ancestors are dying or have already passed on, as my own biological ancestors are dying. It hurts when they go, oh it hurts. But there is comfort in knowing they left so many beautiful pieces of themselves behind for me to latch on to whenever I need them.

And I still have wonderful literary aunts and uncles and cousins who are still here, still writing.

L'Engle and Bradbury are gone, but in their work, and in my work, I can still grasp them and we will all live on.