I was going to post a detailed list of things I’m thankful for—my family, my friends, my other blessings—but I probably won’t. When I was in college, my friend Viki had a talking Barney the Dinosaur. When you squeezed its hand, Barney said, maniacally, “You’re stupendous!” Except our friend Dragomir, from Serbia, heard, “You’re too pensive!”

Slap my ass and call me Yugoslavian, but I think that, today, I just might be too pensive.

After Russell had been in the hospital for almost a month and was starting to get better, we spoke about the theater he worked in, which was opening a new play that weekend. “You’re going to get out of the hospital in time to see that play,” I told him.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

We both believed it. By the time I see the play, he will have been dead two weeks.

He also said, “I sometimes get the idea that I’m going to get out of the hospital, get healthy, get my strength back, and then a nuclear bomb is going to hit Baltimore and kill us all.”

A lot of good things are happening in my life these days. My marriage, of course. Rob and I were just approved for our Manhattan co-op. Some of my business plans are finally coming to fruition. The Apple Computer stock prices are approaching their previous highs, when I bought a lot of it before the George W. Bush crash wiped me out. And I’m thankful for all of these things, and I’m especially thankful for the people in my life who can share those joys with me.

I just wish there were one more.

Russell Groff, 1978 – 2004