In Memoriam: A Look Back At Many Of The People We Lost in 2022

Some people view obituaries as morbid, but in truth only one line in these stories deals with death. The rest of an obit focuses on the amazing lives people led.

In 2022, these obituaries featured people whose lives — and deaths — most affected me:

* Sidney Poitier, Oscar-winning actor

* Bob Saget, comedian

* Meat Loaf, singer

* Howard Hesseman, actor

* Ivan Reitman, director

* P.J. O’Rourke, satirist

* Ned Eisenberg, actor

* Emilio Delgado, “Sesame Street” star

* Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of state

* Dagny Carlsson, world’s oldest blogger

* Gerda Weissmann Klein, Holocaust survivor

* Joanna Barnes, actress and novelist

* Collarwali, tiger

* Elaine Brumberg, fairy godmother of bowling

* Colin Cantwell, designer of the Death Star

* Ray Liotta, actor

* Ann Turner Cook, Gerber baby

* Betty Rowland, burlesque queen

* Woody Williams, last remaining WWII Medal of Honor recipient

* Charlie Milan, candlepin bowler

* Muriel Engelman, WWII nurse

* Dr. Randall E. McNally, plastic surgeon

* Raymond Allen Murray Jr., one of the nation’s first Black marines

* Nichelle Nichols, “Star Trek” star

* Roger E. Mosley, “Magnum PI” star

* David McCullough, historian

* Olivia Newton-John, “Grease” star and pop singer

* Marty Martin, snake expert

* Janice Bluestein Longone, cookbook collector

* Roland Mesnier, White House pastry chef

* Anne Garrels, war correspondent

* Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch

* Al Siegal, editor

* Ilse Nathan and Ruth Siegler, Holocaust survivors and sisters

* Nancy Hiller, woodworker

* Loretta Lynn, country music legend

* Patricia Marvin, Butterball Turkey Talk-Line operator

* Angela Lansbury, actress

* Mehran Karimi, the Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and loosely inspired the film “The Terminal”

* Allen Kay, ad exec

* Bob McGrath, “Sesame Street” star

* Dorothy Pitman Hughes, pioneering feminist

* Don Christopher, Garlic King

* Frances Hesselbein, Girl Scout leader

* Ali Ahmed Aslam, credited with inventing chicken tikka masala

* Dave Whitlock, fly-fisherman

* Barbara Walters, pioneering journalist