Keri Advocat was my friend. She died exactly one year ago of scleroderma. She was not yet 23. She was a photographer of astonishing talent and accomplishment before she was 21. Magazines turned her down only after they learned how young she was.

I bought her photographs, and she came to my apartment and to concert halls to hear me play piano. From the moment I heard the news that she was gone I doubt if a single day has passed in which I have not thought of her, of how we knew each other, of how different she was from any person I have ever known.