5 People the World will Miss in 2009

So many people passed away in 2008. It's a shame some of them didn't have just one more year on this earth. Here are five people we'll never be able to replace.

1. Heath Ledger - I didn't like him at first, but after seeing Ledger in Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight, he had the ability to be one of the greatest actors in this world. His small role in Monsters Ball was the best thing about the movie. His death caused by an accidental overdose to prescription medications was the wake-up call the world needed not to keep ingesting itself with pills that we know aren't safe to begin with.

2. Tim Russert - In this era of Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly jockying for very biased viewpoints as anchors, Tim Russert remained fair to everyone he interviewed. He didn't go light on Democrats, Republicans or anyone in between. More importantly, he showed his interviewees a level of respect at the same time as he grilled them on tough questions. When people pass away, we generally romanticize their lives and only speak well of them. When Russert was alive, people only spoke well of him. He was a good man and a damn good journalist. The news media will never be the same again.

3. Paul Newman - He had it all. Money and fame. But Newman said he really wanted his charity work to be his legacy. Newman raised and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. He used his fame for something really good. He help bring happiness to the lives of children suffering from cancer and other diseases with his Hole in the Wall camp. For that, his opposition to the Vietnam War and being named on Nixon's hate list is just a mulligan. He was also faithfully married to his wife Joanne Woodward for 50 years. That says a lot about his character.

4. George Carlin - The First Amendment means a lot and for Carlin, it meant the right to say, "Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits" whenever he wanted to. Carlin fought the long hard fight in an era of civil rights progression to prove that the First Amendment wasn't just some words in the Constitution. Carlin was also one of the first people to publically say that he didn't believe in God or in Heaven or Hell. He had disdain for all forms of government and all politicians, Democrat, Republicans, etc. Unlike his contemporary Richard Pryor, Carlin failed to be silenced by a declining health or his age. In fact, the older Carlin got, the more angry he got at a society turned into a materialistic gilded age. It wasn't the drugs that killed Carlin but hereditary heart problems. It's a shame he wasn't around to see the collapse of Wall Street and the auto industry, the 2008 election in full, and everything in between because it would have given him endless material.

5. Peter Christopher - You may never hear the name Peter Christopher again. He only published one book, Campfires of the Dead, in 1989. However, Christopher was a great mentor to many other aspiring writers out there. He was a fiction writing professor or mine at Georgia Southern University. He wasn't an easy A. He expected you to come to class every day and be prepared. He expected you to participate in group discussions and he expected you to write a story only you could write. I didn't always agree with his criticism but I wasn't supposed to. He was fair and he was tough. But more importantly, when he gave you a compliment on a story, you knew that he really meant it. They say, those who can't do, teach. That isn't true. Peter Christopher could write. But he also knew that people need someone to kind of point them in the right direction. I wished he was able to publish more books in his lifetime and become as popular and celebrated as one of his favorite writers, Ernest Hemingway. But I'm grateful to have known him and to have been a pupil of his. Peter Christopher was my friend and he will be missed but not forgotten.