What happened to brushes?

No, I don't remember that last line.

Tuesday on the plane home, we few above the clouds, and all I could see looking out on and on was clouds. So it looked more like snow really, and then, a bright blue horizon of sky. On the train, in the city, these (same?) clouds were so low the skyscrapers actually scraped them, well, the tops just disappeared into white.

I'm at work reading The New York Times Arts section, as always, when I stumbled onto this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/arts/design/01paschke.html

Ed Paschke, 65, Dies. Wait, my Ed Paschke. Like Paschke. Yes! That's him in that picture, definitely. What does that mean? He's really dead? Dead dead? Wait, what.

I mean, Vicki, I just can't believe it. I remember him exactly standing in the hall with Conger, and I'm skipping down the hall carrying this pink styrofoam.
Conger, What's that for?! What are you doing?!
Me, I'm going to paint with it!
Conger, (groans?)
Paschke, What happened to brushes?

And in class, everything he said, how much he talked. When he told Marta she should draw her self-portrait as a clown. I don't know, it's just strange. Unexpected deaths. Mortality, Vicki!