June 24th was a remarkable day for me. While at work I heard that a Princeton mathematician solved the greatest puzzle in all mathematics, Fermat's Last Theorem, which had eluded the greatest minds of the last three centuries. On this same day it was announced that several never-before heard Emily Dickenson poems had been found "hidden in plain view." My mind was abuzz and I worked late, unfolding various programming mysteries and making good progress.

I felt a strange sense of bouyancy that night, driving home across the San Mateo bridge. From the top of the western span I could see San Francisco swimming in the embers of a spectacular sunset. Inevitably, I fell back down the span and joined the stream of light shooting across the surface of the bay. I was very tired, but the beauty of the moment provided a kind of release and then, welling up from many interior sources, from distant memories of friendship, from countless other moments of wonder, there came a joyous sense of calm.

A life well-spent becomes a part of all the other lives it touches and is heard again in countless moments of communion. I had not yet heard about Bob in that moment on the bridge, but looking back on it now it seems altogether fitting that his life should find its completion on such a day. The sense of calm I felt was the distillation of a good day. I would like to think that he tasted the same joyous calm at the end of his good life.

He is gone now, and sorely missed, but on days of change and discovery Bob will be heard again.