A day or two ago, I remembered that I'd wanted to submit a choice for Lord Brawl's Lost Gems of Yesteryear quest and hadn't done so yet. It's a nice opportunity to bring a favorite writeup back to the fore, and so I went traipsing through the bookmarks on my homenode. It was a hard but enjoyable decision, and I settled on Why the Willow Weeps by our Halspal.
Now, Halspal is known to many of us around here. He used to be our Senior Editor, and he's been a noder apparently since God was a boy. Halspal seems to elicit all sorts of emotions from various people ... but love 'im or hate 'im, you can't deny his way with words. I regard him as an online friend and think he's one of our best storytellers.
I don't remember when I first read Why the Willow Weeps, but I can sure remember how I felt after reading it. See, like many I've lost a few dear family members to cancer, including my grandfather, who fought lung cancer with all the grit an old Kentuckian can muster (and that's a lot of grit). Halspal's piece brought all those memories back up, and no matter how many times I read Willow, I still get that old mist in my eyes. It may not be a true story (I don't know), but I sure want it to be true. Give it, and the other fine works included in the Quest, a try. They'll make you proud to be part of this E2 thing.