I didn’t get it when people cried after Steve Jobs died. It’s not as if they knew him. Now I get it. The idea that you can feel really heartbroken about the death of someone you never even met.

Christopher Hitchens was the one I turned to whenever the nonsense at Christian college got to be too much. Reading one of his books or watching a video clip of a particularly good Hitchens argument, or “Hitch Slap”, was more than enough to make me feel as if things weren’t all that hopeless. Being able to laugh at his take on religion, in the place I am in, was such a relief.

Now he’s gone. And I can’t help but feel as if the world is a bit bleaker.