a passing

Ray Bradbury, the author that inspired me to become a writer passed away today. His poetic prose, his love of language. I can never forget the feeling of first reading Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man. His books taught me to love language, that language can be art. I'm thankful that my father introduced me to this author when I was young; and I'll pass his books on to my children, and hope the magic will touch them too

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451