This is how I'll always think of Jay Lake. It's how he looked when I first met him, 10 or 12 years ago. He died of colon cancer yesterday. He fought so hard, up to and including getting gene sequencing. 
Lisa Madigan (Lisa Wolfson) died from pancreatic cancer in February 2011, just 8 weeks after she was diagnosed. She had had breast cancer 20 years earlier, and accepted more than most of us that life does not last forever.
At 33, Bridget Zinn was young enough to be my kid. She died in May 2011, again from colon cancer. (Don't tell let anyone tell if you if there is blood in your stool that you are too young to have colon cancer.) Her 2013 book, Poison, was just named a Oregon Spirt Honor book, as was The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die. 