This is one of those incidents where something happened over 30 years ago, and the punch line only comes now. I wouldn't be writing this for the public eye normally, but in this case, the death of Cassia is something that has had resonance throughout the plus-thirty years that followed. In many ways it has been central to my attitudes, especially regarding art and painting -- but also has extended to other forms of expression, writing included.
Though I never met her, her death had, first of all an enormous impact on her father, who was my professor for a painting class at Oberlin, and his grief, and the way he coped with grief in the days