Hannah Rose Orton
One year ago today, the world lost someone special: Hannah Rose Orton, age fifteen. Hannah was my wife’s little sister. I’d known her since she was three and I watched her grow in to an amazing young woman. Hannah was a very passionate girl, throwing herself wholly into everything she took an interest in. Skilled beyond her years, her art was head and shoulders above mine at that age. She was a unique spirit at an age where everyone wants to fit in. Hannah had her own style and made a point to stand out of a crowd. Everyone who knew her loved her. It seemed like, every time I saw her, she was always attached to her best friend in the whole world, Shania. Even if they weren’t together Hannah was talking about her. They were inseparable.
She absolutely adored her big sister, Sarah, and strived to be like her. She was to be in an advanced placement program when she got to high school, she loved Marie Antoinette and wanted to visit Paris, just like her big sister. She loved the band Metric and got her mom and stepdad to take her to Arizona to see them live. Like I said, passionate.
I was Hannah’s age was when I first came up with Gregor. He’d been bouncing around in my head and on paper for the past 15 years, and I just never got around to doing anything with him. I did buy the domain I use now in early July last year, but I had yet to do anything with it.
Then, at six PM on July 28th, I got the call. “You better come over here right now. Something’s happened to Hannah.”
Her death shocked everyone. There was no reason for it. One minute she was talking to Sarah on the phone, preparing for us to come see her that friday, the next, she was gone. We still don’t know what happened, but it shocked me into action. I realize now just how little time we get, and I knew that if I wanted to do this comic I would have to get off my ass and force myself to.
Everything I do now, I do for Hannah. She is my muse, the force that keeps me going. I strive to do what I want to do with my life because she can’t. I live my life for her. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and I never want that to stop. She may be gone, but she’ll always be with me.
Gregor returns next week. Thank you.
Sorry to learn of you, family, and friends loss. It’s hard when someone you love or have come to know so well is taken. I just hope that things get better.
Take care.
What an incredibly powerful artwork, dedicated in her memory.
Losing someone so dear to you is always harsh. It’s a cold reminder of how little time we have and what we must do to push forward. Live strong, and always keep those precious memories.
I second that motion don.
Keep the memories strong and live in a way that would make em proud and it sounds like that is what you are trying to do. May you and your family find peace.
I feel for your loss. My fiance was taken from me about 6 years ago as myself. I understand your pain. Goddess be with you.
As for the picture itself, I honestly thought at first it was a photo. Brilliant artwork.
Beautiful picture and a fitting tribute. Some people are taken before their time but we have to let their memory drive us to better things in our lives.
This comic is a fitting tribute. Keep up the good work.
Just went to my grandmother’s visitation and burial yesterday, so boy does this hit home for me. Grandma made it to 87, so she definitely had more of a chance than Hannah did, not saying it really compares on that level, don’t get me wrong.
Always tragic to lose someone close, more so to lose someone “before their time”, especially tragic for someone that young. It truly makes me wince to see the world lose someone who wasn’t even old enough to drive yet. Makes me wonder if she was that passionate, that talented already … what is the world missing from the woman she might have become?
You have our thoughts and prayers, and I’m sure she would be beaming at you for such a lovely tribute. Keep up the good work. Your talent is not a small one either, and I can’t be the only one to look forward to seeing what develops.
Hang in there, and let your sweetie know we have her back, too.
She was actually learning to drive at the time. Her stepdad told a beautiful story of her learning to use a clutch, with him teaching, at the funeral. I was conducting and it took every fiber of my being not to break down and sob. Here was this man who knew nothing of this girl before she was 5 pouring his heart out about the amazing young woman he’d grown to love as his own. I’d known her since she was 3 and had grown to see her almost as a daughter. She had the tendency to do that; she’d latch her hooks right into your heart and you were stuck forever.
I found this comic only yesterday, and it took me a whole day to feel ready to respond to this.
You have described a beautiful, shining light in the twilight that is our world. You are indeed truly fortunate to have known her. I myself have known one such light, my grandmother, who passed away just over a week before your own loss. Fortunate as my family was to have time to prepare, I feel for you, having no such grace. I can only imagine how terrible the grief must have been, for with us it overwhelmed some, and holding each other up is the only thing that allowed the rest of us to keep ourselves going.
This is an interesting comic so far, and while I see signs of it, if you are not, I encourage you to focus on that passion you remember her displaying and focus it especially on every moment of effort you put into this. This will reach such a broad audience by nature of the medium that you have the opportunity to gift us all with that same light that you carry in her memory. I look forward to seeing it, and seeing how this develops.
Thank you for the work you have done so far and more thanks for the gift of her light that you have shared with us, even as her memory is one that I am sure causes as much grief as it brings happiness and joy. To care so deeply and Live for such a beautiful reason is a nobility that I see far too infrequently in the world, and I am glad to have found an example of it to inspire me to Live.
Thank You.
Thank you for the kind words. She truly was an amazing person, and I feel privileged to have known her. The whole point of this post was to share her with as many people as I could. The world deserves to know what it’s lost, to know the potential that was wasted the night Hannah slipped out of its grasp. I still weep most nights, not because I miss her, but because she will never be the woman she was meant to become; the woman she was MEANT to become. A woman of such passion and talent as to dwarf me in every respect. A woman, a PERSON, so sure of who she is, and where she is going. All that potential lost. I weep for the future that she is not a part of. I think of all she could have been and I am blinded by my tears. No one should die this young. Ever.