Goodbye, Mr. Bradbury

I hope that you have written all the stories left in you, all the stories that you wanted to tell. And even if you hadn't managed to, what you left behind was more than enough. I was a kid when I found you, or you found me. It was "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed," my first Ray Bradbury story. I remembered that the book pages smelled of damp newsprint. I remembered having to look up some of the words in the dictionary. In many ways, you taught me how to read, to hope, to wonder. With you, nobody ever really grows old; it's just the body, that faulty mechanism with an expiration date. I grieve alongside the generations of writers and readers whom you've touched with your wonderful stories. And I am also very thankful. If I had lived before you were born, I would not have read your stories. I'm grateful for living in this time when that is possible. It has been a wild ride, one hell of a spin-cycle in the "happiness machine." Thank you, kind sir.