Tonight I toasted Heath Ledger’s short life and tragic death with a martini in the presence of other moms my age. We gathered for our bi-weekly book group, but I couldn’t help bringing up the day’s news to not only gauge the impact of this actor’s death but to vent my own sorrow around his passing.

So, yeah, a celebrity death. We hear about them regularly. For most of us, they’re not in the same league as say, a close relative dying, or even an old high school friend. But Heath Ledger belongs to a pantheon of celebrities whose deaths have struck a chord with me. More often than not they’re men who’ve crossed over into the mainstream just enough so that even me, a 45-year-old mom, mourns their passing. Heath is in good company. He’s preceded by the likes of other male celebrities whose deaths have saddened me over the years. Talented River Phoenix (actor, OD), sexy Michael Hutchence (INXS lead singer, dead of auto asphyxiation), tragic Kurt Cobain (Nirvana lead singer, OD). I mourn their passing and not just for the obvious reasons—they leave behind small children or grieving wives, their careers have not yet reached their pinnacle, etc—I mourn their loss for a much baser reason: their lives, and they way they lived them on screen or on stage quickened my pulse. Yes, honestly, they all at some point became Class A “man candy” for me, and losing them is like losing a fantasy boyfriend. River Phoenix accompanied me through my youth, navigating coming of age sexual terrain in movies like My Own Private Idaho. Michael Hutchence exuded classic, testosterone driven Jim Morrison-eque rock n’ roll bravado. Kurt Cobain was the tortured, misunderstood artist.

And now Heath. The actor who caught my attention in a silly little film called A Knight’s Tale, about a confident and sexy young knight who earns undying friendship from his peers, the love of his lady, and the respect of his king, all in a sweet comedy with a fun soundtrack. And then years later he reappears on my radar in his full Oscar-worthy glory, in Brokeback Mountain, as a young cowboy bravely pushing sexual boundaries and manning his way through a hold-your-breath ass-fucking scene worthy of any porn on record. That cemented him in my man candy hall of fame. He took chances, he was bold, unafraid, and just plain hot as a gay cowboy. Heath wasn’t just your typical Ivy League or macho man stereotype (neither Brad Pitt or The Rock are on my man candy short list), he was something special. Someone who made me look at men in a new way—even if in that looking, I stopped intellectualizing and just enjoyed Heath in all his erotic glory.

But I guess, like so many of his ilk, he took one chance too many in his personal life, and it was a gamble he lost. Well here’s one mom that will miss his husky voice, and the unrealized promise of his career. So long Heath.