Sad Sad day for FIRST.....RIP Mike Wade

[MishraArtificer]

There’s a grief that can’t be spoken, there’s a pain goes on and on. Empty chairs at empty tables…now my friends are dead and gone
Here they talked of revolution, here it was they lit the flame, here they sang about tomorrow, but tomorrow never came.
From the table in the corner, they could see a world reborn, and they rose with voices ringing, and I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung became their last Communion on the lowly barricade…at dawn…
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me, that I live and you are gone. There’s a grief that can’t be spoken…there’s a pain goes on and on.
Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor, empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends will meet no more.
Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me what your sacrifice was for! Empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends will sing no more…

Be at peace, Mr. Wade, for there are on this earth people who would have followed you to the ends of the world. The ghosts of the barricade honor you.

P.S.: I apologize if these messages for the ones who have passed away seem melodramatic. The quote is from the musical Les Miserables, and it pretty much says all that can be said better than anything I can come up with. Please accept my sympathy for the losses of two (from what I’ve heard: I had never met them when they yet lived) truly great men, Mr. Jerry Smyth and Mr. Mike Wade.
If there’s any way my previous post above can be deleted, I would appreciate it.