R.I.P. my to my last living hereo

All of Mr. Vonneguts books are pure brilliance.  No, make that every word the man said in his LIFE was of pure genius.  While I belive Cat's Cradle is by far his best book, with its interesting look at religion through the worship of an intentionally fake religion, I was most affected by Palm Sunday.
I must be a bit masochistic, because after reading that book, no one should want to be a writer.  I was already attending school for Journalism and reading any fiction books I could get my hands on because I have always loved to read.  In my own bookshelf, I discovered many fantastic books that had belonged to my old roommate.  It was here I read my first Hemingway, first Bradbury and, as fate would have it, I would find the first book of the writer destined to become my favorite of all time.  
Sitting on that memorable bookcase, a glorious book featuring a prominent "V" in contrasting color with the rest of the cover sat and stared me in the eye, daring me to not be intrigued. The book was right, with a simple, yet unique cover like that, I had no choice but to at least read the backside.  It was here I discovered that the book wasn't one of Vonnegut's fictional stories, but an autobiography.  I had heard good things about him, but was not familiar with his works yet, other than the fact that many children in the 70's had to hide his books from their parents. Still, I read a biography of famous renegade Journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, before ever picking up Fear and Loathing or even one of his Rolling Stone articles.  So, I figured, why not learn a little about this writter?
So I picked it up and read.  Like all of his books, I finished cover to cover within a few days, but it changed my life.  Vonnegut told about the suicide of his mother, witnessing the bombardment of Dresden, Germany,  trying to work at General Electric and how he finally started becoming a writer.  He also taught me more about writers.  Things I always thought and felt, he put into words.  Vonnegut told me that writers are terrible with public speaking and interviews because although they are great with words because they don't have time to write everything out and think about each sentance before releasing it.  I fell in love.  He also taught me always write as though they are telling a story to one person in particular...his was his sister.  I don't know who I was writing to before that, but from that day on, I always have pretended I was writing for Kurt Vonnegut.
Had he been closer to my own age, I very likely would have driven to his house and proposed to him.  As it was, I assumed he was far too mature to deal with stupid little me, but when I wrote my first novel, he would be the first person to recieve a copy.  I always held this vow true to my heart, it was incredibly motivating to my writing to be able to have the person I was telling stories for actually read my words.
About one month ago, he died.  I was on a European vacation.  I just read Slaughter House Five and left it with my friend in Sweden to read.  I wrote the first chapter for my first novel, just hoping to mail him a copy the second I typed the last letter.  Now all chance of that is gone.
The good news, as my friend told me while trying to cheer me up, is that he is not really dead.  If you're familiar with Slaughter House Five, you know Mr. Vonnegut is now merely unstuck in time.  He has left our current time and is living in billions of other moments.  So it goes.
It seems likely that this would diminish my desire to write since I cannot finish one of my major goals in doing so, however, I think the opposite has happened.  I have seen so many heros die that this was the last blow.  I need to get up and do something with my life.  I need to become someone's hero.
We all die, the question is, will people I've never even meet be inspired by me first?  I sure hope so.