R.I.P. Jon Hassler

What was the phrase I learned from Mary Jane recently?
Oh yeah, time suck......
The internet is the worst time suck in all of history, (it beats the card catalogue only because in the day, when they were actually in use, libraries were not open 24/7. Had they been, my parents would have been hunting me down in the stacks well after bedtime.)
So, post- Godspell and -Ordination looking in on things I've mostly missed, or didn't have time or energy to delve into aimlessly, I noticed a side bar on Amy Welborn's, a link to a new book by Ron Hansen, Exiles.
Oh, yeah, I like that guy!
So I follow the link.
And I do like that guy, but he's not the guy I'm thinking of -- Mariette in Ecstasy was an elegant, fascinating little book, so I will probably look into Exiles, (although I don't seem to do anywhere NEAR as much elective reading as much as I used to, certainly not of fiction.)
But the author of whom I was thinking was Jon Hassler, so while I'm on the Amazon page I search to see what he has written lately.
It seems he died recently, of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinson's like disease. It was during Holy Week, if I'm remembering my dates correctly, so I have an excuse for having missed the obit.
I though North of Hope was just beautiful, very, very moving -- I read it, IIRC, while going through a period of post-adolescent hopelessness about relationships, and my faith, and my place in life.
I don't know if anything else of his spoke to me in quite that way, but I always enjoyed his prose and his characters very much.
Rest in Peace, Mr Hassler.