Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Celebrate we will, for life is short but sweet for certain.

So many emotions have arisen in the past few days, I felt compelled to blog. South Buffalo has lost three incredible leaders in a very short period of time. First, it was Jimmy Griffin. Love him or hate him, he was a legend in this community and worked to make it a better place.

Then, Tim Russert. My God, what a shocking and horrible tragedy. When his first book came out, Big Russ and Me, I was interning at Living Prime Time with Jerry Flaschner, another great influencer lost too soon. Jerry was a huge fan of Tim and a close friend of Big Russ and just loved the whole Russert family. I wish I would have paid more attention back then.

I've never seen an episode of Meet the Press, never read Big Russ & Me (although it's on the top of my to-do list now) and before watching all the news coverage about his life, I didn't know a whole lot about Tim Russert. I knew about his Buffalo roots, knew he was a great journalist and was into politics, but that was about it. He's one of those people I wish I would have taken the time to learn from. It may not be too late.

Then early this morning, we lost Debbie Clotfelter, founder of Caz Coffee Cafe. I wasn't terribly close to Deb, but many of my friends were and she was someone to look up to. She opened the coffee shop in 2005 after having a dream about it and that place has come to mean so much to so many people. Truthfully, I would not be as close to some of my dearest friends if it were not for that place. We congregated there every Thursday for almost an entire year for Open Mic Night to drink coffee, listen to some tunes and just hang out. So much happened in that year, but Thursdays at Caz was always a constant.

Whether it's expected or sudden, death is never easy to deal with. I wasn't really close to any of these people, I only knew one of them personally, but their individual deaths have touched me in a very personal way. Collectively, they represent community leadership, dedication to success and hope for a better tomorrow. We need more people like Jimmy, Tim and Debbie to care enough about this world to actively work to make it better. They are heroes to me and I hope to touch half the people that they positively affected in my time on this Earth.