Barbara Seranella, a writer and a good friend of mine, died two days ago. She was decades sober, but her wild youth had left her with hepatitis C. Dormant for years, it finally attacked her liver. She'd had two transplants last year, the second only three days after her body violently rejected the first. The odds were against her but she came through and it looked okay; then the hep C began on the new liver. She was waiting for a third transplant when she died. Barbara was generous, strong, and straightforward, smart and funny. Just a few weeks ago she wrote this piece for the LA Times. It's completely Barbara, honest but not sappy, wry, hopeful. And in the end it didn't happen. I'm so sad. But I'll remember her with such joy: the afternoon she showed folks around Monterey; the gun seminar in Las Vegas, us out in the desert blasting away, missing every target. If there is some peace after we die, I hope Barbara's found it. Because she sure earned it.