This week the world should have stopped its eternal axial spin, every living thing should have held its breath and taken notice. Because this week we lost one of our own. Staff member Lydia Ondrusek passed away on Monday, January 25th.

In support of her family and acknowledgment of her life we dedicate this issue of Flash Fiction Online to her memory, resurrect a story, “Shelter,” which she published with Flash Fiction Online in our December 2008 issue, and offer a fitting tribute from our founding publisher, Jake Freivald:

“The world lost someone special last month when Lydia Ondrusek passed away on January 25. She was fifty-seven. She had no pretensions of being a Great Person, one of those who would measure her worth in newspaper inches. She was better than Great: She was good. She was the kind of person who lent her ear and shoulder, who said gentle words when they were needed, and who, without ceremony or conceit, was there for other people. She was playful, too, with enjoyable wit and humor. Those of us who knew her – as a member of the Flash Fiction Online staff, through Twitter as @littlefluffycat, or in person – will miss her greatly.

“If you pray, please consider doing so for her husband, Jay, her two grown sons, Robert and Patrick, and her surviving siblings.”

Godspeed, Lydia.

The Flash Fiction Online staff