In terms of celebrity deaths, 2016 was brutal
In January, legendary rock and roller Davie Bowie died at 69. And just this week, pop star George Michael and iconic "Star Wars" actress Carrie Fisher breathed their last.
And the year's not over yet. We can just hope and pray.
Along the way, we lost actors Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, Abe Vigoda, George Kennedy, Patty Duke, Garry Shandling, Doris Roberts, Gloria DeHaven, Kenny Baker, Gene Wilder, Hugh O'Brien, John Polito, Robert Vaughn, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Music said goodbye to Glenn Frey, Paul Kantner, Sonny James, Frank Sinatra Jr., Merle Haggard, Billy Paul, Guy Clark, Pete Fountain, Jean Sheppard, Bobby Vee, Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell.
Literature wasn't spared. Harper Lee, Umberto Ecco, Pat Conroy, Earl Hamner Jr., Lois Duncan, Elie Wiesel and Edward Albee all passed away.
And there was Nancy Reagan, Antonin Scalia, Edgar Mitchell, Morley Safer, Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe, John McLaughlin, Arnold Palmer, Shimon Peres, Tom Hayden, Janet Reno, Fidel Castro, John Glenn and Henry Heimlich.
And that's not even close to a complete list.
We all feel a connection with some who died this year. We grew up watching them perform, read their works or admired and respected their accomplishments in so many fields.
But one has a special connection to Texarkana-a connection that includes another celebrity lost many years ago on a street in New York.
In 2000, George Michael paid more than $2 million for the upright Steinway piano former Beatle John Lennon used when he composed his classic hit "Imagine."
Michael said he wanted the piano to stay in the U.K. and be seen by fans, not be lost to some wealthy collector in the U.S. or Japan who would hide it away in a private home.
But the piano did make its way to America-and to Texarkana.
In 2007, Michael and his partner Kenny Goss, who owned an art gallery in Dallas, sent the piano on a world tour to promote peace. The idea was to have the piano played and filmed at a number of sites that had seen tragedies, big and small. A book and documentary were planned.
The first stop was Dallas, where the piano was played at the site of President john F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination. Then to Memphis and the Lorraine Motel, where it was part of a commemoration of the death of civil rights icon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Other stops included Ground Zero in New York City; the former Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas; Ford's Theatre in Washington; the Alfred T. Murray Courthouse in Oklahoma City and Texarkana, the hunting grounds of 1946's infamous Phantom Killer,
I met Caroline True, who was organizing the tour, when she came to the Gazette offices seeking information on the Phantom. Reporter Greg Bischof and I helped her with sites and information, and we both were interviewed on camera near the site where Phantom victim Paul Martin's body was found. We listened as "Imagine" was played on the piano that still bore the long ago scars of Lennon's burning cigarettes.
Caroline later sent me a copy of the resulting book. It was beautifully done. I haven't seen the planned documentary. I don't know for sure if it was ever released.
Michael was known for his generosity. He gave freely and often anonymously. He helped a lot of people.
And thanks to him, something very special came to Texarkana, if just for an afternoon.
Yes, 2016 was a year that took many who brought joy into our lives, but we will always have memories, and hopes for a better, more merciful 2017.