Sadness

I have sad tidings, which you may have already heard.

Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall Series, died two days ago.

How very sad. I'm sure many of you have read those honorable books - for me, they were my first real, sad, epic, long stories. They were the first books I read where good guys might actually die, where bad guys might actually win (for a time), but where good would ultimately triumph in the end.

I remember in an interview several years ago Jacques said he planned to keep writing the Redwall series till the day he died... he lived up to that ambition. Two days ago a heart attack took him at 71 years of age; this May his 22nd Redwall book, "The Rogue Crew", will be released.

I only found out the news that he'd died just this morning. When I saw the headline of the article, I literally leaped out of my chair and ran, yelling through the house, up and down stairs, shouting to siblings, "The author of the Redwall series DIED!" The news was greeted with much shock and sadness.

I was working tonight at the library - just got back a half hour ago, in fact. While I was tidying books in the children section, I came to the lonely little section storing the half-dozen Redwall books that hadn't been checked out. Loamhedge, Martin the Warrior, Redwall, High Rhulain... I stroked their spines, each one individually, and thought of something I remembered and cherished about each story. Then I stood there, hands folded behind my back, and spent a few moments staring at the books, giving mental tribute to the man who wrote them. Before moving on, I whispered a few quick words to the books. "Thank you for a good tale well-told," I said. Not particularly profound words, but they were what came to me.

Farewell, Brian Jacques.