I think of landmark birthdays when they arrive on the calendar and I miss the people who would celebrate them were they still around.

One such person’s birthday comes up on Oct. 9. That’s today. He would be 85 years of age. He’s no longer around to mark the event. He was gunned down at 40. Far too young. He was John Lennon.

Of all the assassinations we have endured over the years, this one made the least sense of all of them. John Lennon’s killer earlier in evening of Dec. 8, 1980, had gotten the ex-Beatle’s autograph. Then he waited for John and his wife to return home to their apartment in New York City. He pulled out his pistol and then … well, you know the rest of it.

The shooter is serving a life sentence for the senseless murder of a man who preached the cause of world peace. He had taken a five-year sabbatical from the limelight to raise his young son. John had returned to the studio to make music again.

John Lennon’s work already is the stuff of legend. He was one-half of the most successful songwriting team in music history. Only God knows what he would have produced had he been given the chance.

John Lennon and his Beatle band mates helped raise me. I miss him every day.