I’m not sure if I’m clinically depressed, self obsessed, or simply mad as a hatter, but my mind never stops whirring, and it’s difficult getting to sleep these days. When attempting to explain how I feel to my shrink—or what friends I have left—I stutter and stammer, seeking the right words. “It’s an existential crisis,” I said to a confidant. “The longer I live, the more the reason why eludes me.” In college, I turned to philosophy, but Socrates asked more questions and provided few answers, which forces the student to look inward for enlightenment, rather than outward. In the 19th century, Soren Kierkegaard suggested that “angst and existential despair might appear when faced with unexpected and extreme life-experiences” (www.wikipedia.com) .

I think most of us were taken aback last Tuesday, when the storm went from bad to worse and 95 mph winds tore through parts of Pennsylvania and New York, wreaking havoc and destruction in their wake. Surprised by how swiftly conditions were changing, I jumped when my cell phone sprang to life just as the power failed. “Tornado Warning” it read. “Take shelter now.” I’ll admit, I was alarmed, and I grabbed the dog, clutching her to me, eyeing the many windows and skylights that I normally adore. “It’s a twister!” I shrieked in tribute to “The Wizard of Oz,” and hightailed it to the lower level, as the sound of trees being snapped in half crackled in the air. When it was all over, car alarms blared in the distance, and I got drenched with the dog as we surveyed the scene. “Wow, man,” I muttered, taking it all in. “There’s no rhyme or reason as to who got hit and what was spared. Look what can happen in the blink of an eye.”

While scanning the web for photos of local damage, I considered myself lucky. I heard workmen already in my neighborhood, assessing the damage and doing their best to remove two enormous felled trees from my driveway. As I checked in with friends online, one Facebook post caught my eye. “Can you believe it?” she asked. “I slipped on a piece of paper and broke my hip!” As usual, my friend, Adrienne Butvinik, was upbeat and positive. “Surgery went well,” her follow-up post declared, “and I should be home by Saturday, to begin physical therapy.”

Adrienne, the self-proclaimed “Happy Hippie,” the extraordinarily gifted artist and teacher who touched many lives, the most beloved person I have ever personally known, never got to go home. She suddenly passed away Saturday morning from post-surgical complications, her shining light snuffed out in the blink of an eye. “This can’t be right,” I thought, scanning her profile page, disbelieving the words on the screen.

“I am sad,” one post read. “The world should be sad. Adrienne Butvinik was the most loving, accepting person I knew.” As I scrolled down the page, I was overwhelmed by thoughts from others. “I have never known a woman so fruitful,” one tribute said. “I marveled at her non-stop adventures. Adrienne was a role model.” Photos began popping up on her page, and I contributed one or two of my own, for Adrienne was always a willing subject when asked to smile for the camera.

“How apropos,” I said to her at Narrowburg’s Riverfest last year, “that you tie-dye everything you come into contact with. You are the living embodiment of a rainbow!”

“Mrs. B was larger than life,” a former student writes. “More colorful than all of the colors in any spectrum and more loving than most are capable of. There are certain things that you just don’t want to accept in life. This is one of them.”

Hundreds of comments and photos later, I’m still dumbfounded and at a loss. The word “why” resurfaces in my mind. Why? “Carpe diem!” I write on friends’ pages when their birthdays pop up on my calendar, and sometimes it gives me pause. Do I really “seize the day?” I wonder. Adrienne once asked me about my favorite quote, written on my Facebook page. “Live, live, live!” it states, a favorite line from the movie Auntie Mame. “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Auntie Mame and Adrienne Butvinkik had a lot in common, IMHO. Wondering what her favorite quote might be, I looked at her Facebook page one last time. It is: “But it is a small price for living a dream.”

“It’s from a fortune cookie,” she had written parenthetically, which now seems tragically fitting. R.I.P.

To visit Adrienne Butvinik’s “Legacy Page,” go to www.facebook.com/Catmaid.