There is a message here about impermanence. While I've heard it many times before, somehow every time an unexpected event happens or I receive unwelcome news, I have to learn the lesson all over again. We are not in control of so many things.
These were the people who shaped lives, who shaped my life. They weren't famous enough to get an obituary in the big newspapers. But they were the people who cared, who gave me moments each day that I looked forward to.
I met Jonieke in 1989. We were interns at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy. Jonieke and I belonged to a group of 20-somethings who assembled on that magical group of islands in a museum that had been the home and private collection of an eccentric heiress.