No one likes the fact that death is such an irrevocable part of life. Having lost my Dad nearly two years ago, I know the profound pain that can be felt with such a loss. When fellow sailor Kelly O'Neil was tragically killed in an auto accident recently, many of you used the Sailing Anarchy forum to share thoughts and emotions about her passing. In fact over 500 posts and 62,000 views in just one thread about Kelly. We are frankly humbled that we have helped provide this vehicle of communication. I have long talked about the community of Sailing Anarchy, and this, to me, is one of the finest examples of it. Liza Tewell wrote the following piece about Kelly for us. Thanks -The Ed

The call was unexpected and brief. The hesitation before speaking told me more than words could. Something had happened. Something was wrong. A familiar voice at the other end said simply, "It's Kelly."
The loss just six weeks before of her brother, a dynamic outdoor conservationist who forewent sleep so as to fit in as much fun as humanly possible, was a tragic blow to everyone who knew him. Those who hadn't met Willie suffered the loss of someone who might have helped to change their future for the better, in a way yet undiscovered.
But in true Kelly style, she expressed her grief in celebration, arranging a visual and musical tribute that packed the Everett Yacht Club the evening after they buried Willie in a picturesque setting near the mountains and rivers he loved.
Kelly's sorrow was shared by her large family -- Willie was the oldest of seven -- and by friends, colleagues and those who had benefited by outdoor legislative code Willie had coaxed through the Washington State political system.
I hesitated to ask because I didn't want to hear the answer.
"What happened?"

A car accident. A guilty sense of relief. A broken arm. Or perhaps a leg. Then pragmatic interrogating: when, where, how? Why.
The full details came after the unbelievable happened. Kelly passed away. Not knowing that it was a drunken ex-con who sped through a stop sign, catapulting a pickup truck onto the roof of Kelly's Chevy Suburban, spared the gigantic community that was Kelly's world from having to deal with the anger that the answers eventually generated. Instead thousands were given the opportunity to hope, remember and ultimately, to mourn.

For over a week, a steady stream of friends and family passed though or hung out at the ICU/burn unit of Seattle's Harborview Hospital on Capitol Hill. The sand-colored, mid-century complex towers over the Interstate 5 freeway. Kelly's room had a view of the cradled waters of Puget Sound and looked northwest, toward the sunset.
The Sailing Anarchy website forum about Kelly logged tens of thousands of hits from around the world - Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, across the United States and Canada. The initial postings were dumfounded queries. How was Kelly they asked? What happened? Is it true? Sorrow inspired the poets within and the letters became softer after a time, offering memories to share. Some expressed regret that they did not know the person of whom all these words were written, but wished they had. Universally, those who did could look up from their computer screens and see a photo that Kelly had taken. Of their boat, of their wedding, of themselves enjoying life.

Kelly was our mirror to ourselves, whose reflection showed us not as we were: selfish, shy, impatient; but as we should be: daring, enthusiastic, generous - happy. We needed her to photograph our achievements and failures. To document and thereby affirm our place in the fabric of humanity. Without her, our collective fear is that we will revert to our lonely, barbaric ways.
The Sailing Anarchy forum postings, if printed, would be an epic story, more than 200 pages long, of a woman who made each of us want to be a better person. Photos were posted on the site as well. All showed a smiling Kelly. At seven. At 12. In high school and college. As a bride. As a mother. In her runabout, on the beach in New Zealand, racing down the slopes at Whistler, in Desolation Sound on Vancouver Island. In each, that glorious grin. Grownups weren't supposed to have dimples like that. She was a beautiful person, said Ernie Brooks, of the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara where Kelly earned her degree in professional photography, because she had a beautiful heart.
Kelly's send-off was, again, in true Kelly style, held after a boat race, with flowers and Hershey's Kisses and food and beer and music.

Sailors, family, childhood friends, college chums, ski buddies and Olympic medalists stuffed themselves into the Seattle Yacht Club and spilled out onto the green lawns near the stacks of Lasers. Her Avon, Smile 2, a familiar site to racers up and down the coast, parked in front and draped with garlands of flowers. Earlier that day, as the racers rounded the weather mark, they had tossed daffodils, her favorite, into the anchored runabout, filling the cockpit.
The chocolate Kisses were a Kelly trademark. Over the years, she developed just the right grip, arc and speed to land one half the length of a football field into the cockpit of a racing boat, a clever bribe to elicit a smile as she snapped her photos. Like trained seals, boaters would see Smile 2 speeding toward them across the racecourse and shout for chocolate. Kelly! Over here! Throw us some kisses! Some missed their mark and now lay at the bottom of Puget Sound, perhaps to be discovered one day by archeologists who will claim to find religious meaning in the little nuggets of cocoa wrapped in silver. And perhaps they would be right. Those Kisses were tangible tokens expressing ephemeral love.

Kelly wasn't perfect. She could be exasperatingly spontaneous and had an earthy laugh. She probably drove her teachers crazy. Always planning, always scheming, always thinking: what's the goal and what's the best way to have the most fun getting there? And what story will I have to tell when it's finished? She followed the rules that mattered, ignored the ones that didn't. She had a razor sharp memory. Sometimes she wouldn't shut up. Gerry was half-way across the Pacific Ocean, doing the Vic-Maui, when Kelly made a last-minute decision to load their Express 37, Re-Quest, with some girlfriends (most of whom weren't racers) and take them to a Tuesday night Duck Dodge race on Seattle's Lake Union. On the way to the start line, she got a ticket from the harbor cop.
Seems it was Gerry's job to renew the tabs. Kelly told the officer she didn't know where they were, and she might have gotten off with a warning had she left it at that. But she wouldn't slow the boat ("might miss the gun") and mouthed off to the officer in her jesting, roast-style of delivery. No sense of humor, she said, and stuffed the ticket into her pocket.
The wind picked up. The newbie crew looking blissfully ignorant when Kelly declared that the big chute was needed to win the race. The few of us who knew better looked downright scared. Did I mention that five children -- two boys, including Louis, and three girls -- were below decks beating on each other as only those under ten can? Sure enough, we won. And have a fine story to tell. (With photos to prove it, of course.)

Kelly was fastidious. She often washed her Avon twice, "just to be sure." A week before Louis was born, Kelly's husband Gerry came home to find his wife on the roof cleaning the gutters. She figured she'd be too busy once the baby came. Why wait? She told how growing up, the kids weren't allowed to stack the dishes when clearing the table after dinner. It would get the plates needlessly dirty on the bottom. (Those of us from smaller families secretly wondered how much counter space a family of nine would need in order to do this.)
The family home was a mini-mansion of Georgian-style lines with hidden nooks and crannies and a great big yard. Not long ago the house was sold. The seven O'Neil kids, born in the 1950s and 1960s, had grown up and moved. The house was in the smallish city of Everett, about half an hour north of Seattle. An old union town near the water, and a jumping off point for boaters headed to the San Juan Islands. It now boasts a brand new hockey arena. In Everett it seemed everyone knew the O'Neils.
The weekend Willie died, Kelly sat on a couch in a cabin in the mountains, two well-behaved dogs at her feet and the kids laughing in the snow just outside the window. She told a story of how recently, she stopped by the old house. She couldn't say why. She paced back and forth near the hedges and then, thinking passersby might take her for a burglar casing the joint, walked up the steps to the kitchen door and knocked. A woman answered.
Hi, said Kelly. I'm Kelly Henson. The woman gave her a blank, slightly frightened look. Kelly O'Neil Henson - I used to live here…
She began to cry before she could finish. Not just crying, but outright bawling, she said. The poor woman, finally understanding, ushered her in for tea. The new owner was then treated by Kelly to a tour of her own home. Kelly rushed her from room to room and showed her where the secret cubbies were, those places the kids hid when trying to get out of doing chores. Where the hidden access was to the roof - a favorite hangout of the boys. Oh, said the woman, I wondered why I found beer bottles up there. Kelly laughed as she told this story, and we chuckled along with her. It was such a Kelly thing to do.
The memories are still sharp, which is why they're painful. With time they will mellow and become part of us. When we smile at the new kid in town to make them feel welcome, that will be Kelly. When we stand at the top of a ski run and choose to take the hard way down, that will be Kelly. When we take the time to drop someone a letter, not just an email, that will be Kelly. When we agree to fit one more activity into our schedule - because it will help someone else - that will be Kelly.
She made it to the finish before us and without us, and because of that we are angry yet grateful that that last tack and beat was quick. It is the pendulum which reminds us to accept that we would not miss her as we do had we not enjoyed her company so much.