Dear Ferret Folks-

I have been very fortunate in the friends I have made via the FML over
the years. I have made some deep, lasting friendships with people met
face to face, and people unmet, as well. People whose faces are only
known to me through the pictures they have sent me, their e-mails,
typed out in good times and bad. Sometimes my unmet friends have turned
to me in bad times, as you would turn to any friend, and I have turned
to them in just the same way...and almost always received the blessings
of friendship in return. And I will always count Todd Leuthold among my
blessings. He was a good friend, a good friend.

I am trying to imagine how he would feel right now, knowing that the
parts of his life he was not proud of are laid bare for friend and
stranger alike to consider. To weigh. To judge. It would be an agony, I
am certain, as it would be for many of us to have our lives laid bare
to the eyes of the world. I know it would have been an agony for him,
because in all our years of correspondance, he held certain things back
from me that he was not proud of. But now, certain things about my
friend make more sense.

I can't make any sense out of his death, it's one of those senseless
acts of violence that we all deplore, and hope will pass over our
families, our friends. It's a burden his young daughter whom he loved
*dearly* will have to shoulder, and bear for all of her years. And I
will carry my small part as well, as the years pass. I will mourn the
loss of his wit, his wisdom, and his friendship. The simple pleasure
of booting up my inbox and finding that I have a scandalously funny
message about something *unbelievable* that a ferret had done from
Todd. Or a sad one. There were may of those, as well. The sadness was
never far from the surface. Farewell, my Fuzzbutt Rodeo Clown.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5697]