We got a sad lesson recently on how powerful a seemingly simple act of kindness can be, how important it is to remind someone who’s ill how much they mean to you.

Earlier this month, Doug Fletcher, longtime Sun Journal reporter and editor, died of lung cancer. He was only 62.

In recent months he moved from Turner to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts. We knew he wasn’t doing well. It had been a while since we sent him a card.

So our photographers organized a group photo of the newsroom staff in the parking lot, holding a handwritten banner that read: “Thinking of you Doug.”

We mailed it off.

Then we received word he was gone.

A few days afterward we received an e-mail from his daughter, Darcy Messineo, telling us some of her father’s most memorable and proud times was working at the Sun Journal. “Not being able to return to work was one thing he missed the most when he got sick,” she wrote.

He fought the cancer until the end, she said. “Ironically, he was finally ready to ‘let go’ moments after a picture of his Sun Journal family was delivered to my house. We showed him the picture and described it to him. A single tear fell from his right eye, a smile fell on his lips and he took his last breaths.”

His daughter told us he was “holding on to say goodbye to people who he spent the last 12 years of his life with.”

– Bonnie Washuk

Really good pizza, or my free lunch

On Friday, photographer Jose Leiva and I were at the Walton Elementary School reporting on new healthier menu items in Auburn’s elementary schools.

Principal Michelle McClellan invited me to eat lunch with her. Normally I decline meals from people I’m writing about. When we have to cover a talk at a dinner, typically the reporter is sitting by himself or herself without a plate while everyone else is eating. But in this case I thought it would be useful to see if the healthier food tasted good.

So I thanked McClellan and accepted her offer. Sitting beside the principal, I ate the same school lunch as the students: ½ percent chocolate milk, a big slice of pizza and kiwi slices. The pizza was outstanding. The crust was very tasty. No one’s giving up anything eating healthier with this meal. I asked how they prepared the pizza.

Auburn School Nutrition Director Paula Rouillard said they buy the whole wheat dough from Sam’s. The cafeteria cooks prepare the dough, including making it rise (I always found the rising part tricky), loading on the sauce and cheese, then cooking it. My compliments to the chefs.

– Bonnie Washuk