I miss a man I've never met.

Gorgeous original from MR-Bestiya

Yesterday, the world lost someone amazing. Someone I'd never met, and yet I feel his absence sharply. Someone who many say helped shape their minds and dreams, someone who showed us that every day was a blessing and every person was unique. I speak, of course, about Leonard Nimoy.

I can only tell you what he meant to me personally. Like many, my first memories of him were as Spock - born of two worlds, not fully fitting into either, and yet he had true friends who accepted him, showing us that there was hope for even the loneliest among us. Without even realizing it, I'd found something to aspire to - do your best, never mind the haters, learn all you can, be there for each other.

I remember reruns of Mission: Impossible, with Paris as the master of disguise. It's possible that's why I change my mind about myself every few days, but that's neither here nor there.

Every week on In Search Of he showed us new mysteries to discover. I've never lost that joy of illumination, tracking down answers to unsolved situations. Show me a Bermuda Triangle or Stonehenge or Tunguska movie and I'm there to the end.

He was charming and smooth in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and in Baffled! he was, well, baffling as a psychic race car driver. He was the missing best friend on Fringe. And he popped up on so many shows I couldn't hope to name them all without IMDB. Don't get me started on his music...

He was a director, he was a photographer, he was a feminist, he was a legend. He touched so many lives, and now he's gone. But maybe we'll all see him again. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe if we all wish really hard - after all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.