William F Buckley, Jr, R.I.P.

I just can hardly believe WFB has passed away.

He was of the same generation of Momma ... he was born in 1925, and Momma in 1921.

Oh God I can hardly believe how hard this all is ...

I love you Jesus ... and I love you and thank you for Momma ... and for WFB ...

I was one of thousands who have sent reactions to NRO ... here's my letter:

Dear Sir or Madam:

I heard the news about William F. Buckley, Jr's death last night as I was driving home from work. I started crying and couldn't stop crying for seeming hours. I still can hardly believe it. And here I am starting to cry again.

Yet the thought of his passing brings to me as many tears of gratitude as tears of sadness. I am deeply, deeply grateful for what this man has given to me. I have never met him in person; I have never corresponded with him. Yet I feel almost as I did when my dear mother died last year.

I was a callow 18 year old McGovernite, in 1972, my Freshman year at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, when I first encountered Mr Buckley's writings. Somehow I had found myself reading a copy of National Review in the library. It wasn't long before I bid leftism farewell forever. In about 1973 or 1974, I first subscribed to NR, and have been a continuous subscriber since then. Somewhere about the time I started reading NR, I was reading every book Mr Buckley wrote that I could get my hands on. I became an avid Firing Line viewer, and often wrote off for transcripts, which still fill out my large Buckley collection. I read not only his work, but the works of many, many others to whom he led me. I think Mr Buckley's enormous courtesy, as well as his intelligence and sharpness of wit, were I think what captivated me from the beginning. I read every one of his collections of columns, and later his sailing books, and a few of his novels. What a delight it was, and is, to read almost anything he wrote on any subject at all that piqued his interest. His books occupy a special and honored place in my library. All are such a delight; but I have to single out for myself his Odyssey of a Friend, chock full of the deeply moving Buckley-Chambers friendship, as one of my all time favorite books by anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Oh and now he is gone. What a loss, what an irreplaceable loss.

Yet at the same time what blessings he bestowed on me as on so many, many others. I can only hope and pray that it might be my privilege to meet him some day in a far better place than this vale of tears ... and vale of gratitude.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr Buckley. Now and always.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Charles

PS Rest in Peace. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.