Pre-Ramble:  I’m not sure why, but as I’m reading through the daily newspaper I’ll occasionally glance through the obituary section. I guess it is somehow curious/interesting to sample the variety of people who have … lived. (Stick with me here – I promise there’s a happy ending…)

While being confronted with the reality of death in the names and faces of actual people can be sad, it can also be inspiring to read about all of the interesting experiences and accomplishments that these folks have been able to pack into their lives.

There are often listings of people in their 80′s and 90′s accompanied by a handsome photo from when they were young. I’ll think that they must have had rich and fulfilling lives, and can picture them sitting in a big floral recliner surrounded by the happy noise of a family gathering. Sometimes there will be a woman around my age who has died, and I’ll wonder what her life was like and hope that she had had a chance to do everything she had wanted to do (but knowing that probably she did not). Harder to consider are the lives of young adults and teenagers whose lives have been taken too soon, often in early morning car accidents. I naturally think of my own two girls and can’t even begin to let myself imagine the profound sadness that their family and friends must feel at their loss. And sometimes, more frequently than there ever should be, there will be a picture of a very young child who has died; photographs intended to mark the beginning of a new life, brought to recognition of its end. I can’t bear to read those.

But sometimes, like today, the obituary stories describe a unique and lovely circumstance that can’t help but brighten the collective Universe’s day…

Wayne Allwine, a Walt Disney Studios voice-over artist who was the voice of Mickey Mouse for more than three decades, has died. He was 62.

Allwine made his debut voicing the world’s most famous mouse in 1977 on ”The New Mickey Mouse Club” and went on to supply Mickey’s voice for Disney movies, TV specials, theme parks, records, toys and video games. His credits include, “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” “The Three Musketeers,” “Mickey Mouseworks,” “House of Mouse,” and “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.”

And then you read:  “For the past eighteen years, Allwine was married to fellow voice-over artist, Russi Taylor – the voice of Minnie Mouse.”

The Take-Away:  Can’t you just see the two of them sitting at the breakfast table in their “mouska-ear hats”? … Hey there! Hi there! Ho there! 

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