I meant for this post to be my New Year’s post, but well, shit happens and I’m typing it now rather than then. Too much World of Warcraft, I suppose. At any rate, the point of this post is that 2008 was a red-letter year for death. A lot of people I cared about and liked died last year, so I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. I compiled a list of deaths that occurred throughout 2008. Some are more important to me than would be to the three or four of you who read the blog, and some of them might be more important to you than to me. Still, a lot of deaths. Here goes in chronological order:

1. January 22: Heath Ledger, arguably one of the better contemporary actors in lots of films Ian and I own and enjoy, made more sad by his phenomenal role as the Joker in the latest Batman movie, which he will never get to revisit.
2. March 4: Gary Gygax, co-creator of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game that has given me, the husband, and millions of others so much enjoyment and fun. When he died, almost every web comic I read bemoaned his fate for weeks.
3. March 19: Sir Arthur C. Clarke, prominent science fiction writer whose quotes I have collected for some time.
4. April 5: Charlton Heston, insanely famous actor and NRA spokesperson (maybe now we can get that gun out of his cold, dead hands).
5. April 17: Aimé Césaire, famous Francophone poet from Martinique whose career covered not only amazing Black poetry but political activism for his country and equal rights.
6. May 22: Robert Lynn Asprin, my all-time favorite science fiction and fantasy author whose death left me cold for weeks. Even now, I still can’t believe the writer of my favorite series and characters is gone. He had just started up a new series too. At least I have his works to remember him by. Asprin, you are missed.
7. June 22: George Carlin, comedian, linguist, and actor, his death was a blow to laughter everywhere. That his death was one month after Asprin’s was quite a shock to me since I was still reeling from Asprin’s death.
8. July 22: Estelle Getty of The Golden Girls. Not that I have fond memories of the show itself so much as the references to it, such as one of my friends’ roommates who used to watch it at three in the morning in his dorm room.
9. September 8: Great Aunt Irma, sister to Ian’s dad’s mom. It was a strange sort of reunion because I was meeting so many family members at such a sad time.
10. September 26: Paul Newman, actor and philanthropist, his blue eyes closed forever. I really didn’t get into Newman’s films until the past couple years, and now that I’ve enjoyed many of them, I’m sad that he’s gone.
11. October 12: Grandma Rose Ann Doyle. Grandma had health problems long before Ian and I started dating, so for as long as we’ve been together, Grandma’s health had been in a constant state of decline. Still, it was hard to hear that she had died and even harder being at the funeral with all the family. Grandma, you’ll always be remembered here.
12. November 4: Michael Crichton, author of the Jurassic Park books and many other novels. I’ve only ever read the ones with dinosaurs, but both the books and the movies are a part of my childhood I’ll never forget.
13. December 11: Bettie Page, famous pin-up model, not that I have any pin-ups of her, but I found it interesting another famous name was gone.
14. December 18: Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry as well as voice of the computer on all the series plus Lwaxana Troi on TNG.
15. Also December 18: the Chevy Celebrity, Ian’s old 1988 silver POS. We had that car for ten years, driving it from college to college to college, not to mention all over the state. It’s hard to believe it had just over 100,000 miles on it when it finally stopped. Sure, we could have gotten it fixed for about three times its Blue Book price (if it were in excellent condition, which it was not), but we simply couldn’t afford it. It was time to let her go. I still miss seeing it outside the house. It was also another piece of Grandma Doyle we had to let go because it used to be her car. I guess it knew she was gone.
16. December 19: Carol Chomsky, wife to the famous linguist and political activist, Noam Chomsky. She was his biggest supporter, and now I worry that he’ll soon follow her.

So there are some of the deaths I found notable last year. It was a big year for great people to die in. In there are also Logan Cording, son of a family friend, and Katie’s grandma on her husband’s side, but I didn’t have dates for those two though still important people. It makes me wonder what kind of year 2009 will be if many of the writers and actors I appreciate have already died. Who’s next? Morgan Freeman? Harisson Ford? Tanith Lee? Tamora Pierce? Really, I guess I’d rather not think about it. Thinking about all the deaths in 2008 is gloomy enough. Time to kill some brain cells with a couple beers and WoW. I’ll drink a toast to a better year.