Leave a hole.

There isn't much more that any of us can hope to do with our lives other than to leave a hole when we leave this world.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Mom. I remember a thousand different moments every day, a thousand little things that simply can't be replaced. I hear songs that remind me of Mom... I smell the ileagnis when I'm out walking and I think of the ileagnis in Mom and Dad's back yard and the time we would spend out there... even mundane things like chopping onions remind me of her zen attitude towards little chores like that, executing them flawlessly while carrying on conversations with us at the kitchen table. I never learned to do that; I was never very good at those little chores, because I always had to think about them.

And very few days go by that I don't think of my dear friend Carol Kalish. Carol left a hole that will always go unfilled; she loved comics, and she loved what Marvel Comics was and what it could be, and it has never been the same in her absence.

Sometimes we don't realize just how large a hole we might leave in our passing. I don't think that Mom ever saw herself as someone who would leave a hole, but she did. None of our lives are the same now that she's gone; we all measure our days by how we cope with her absence.

I don't think that Carol ever thought about how big a hole she would leave, either.

We can all hope that we leave that large a hole...