Des Moines has lost an enormous amount of talent in the last couple of weeks, and as a result, we are a city in deep grief. The irrepressible Mo Dana died after a battle with cancer that some would call courageous, but she would probably say bluntly, as was her style, “just plain sucked.” She was one of a kind, and it will probably be a long time before Des Moines Arts Festival organizers stop asking “What would Mo do?”

We hadn’t properly mourned our loss of Mo – a celebration of her life will be held at 4 p.m. Monday in the Grand Hall of the Temple for Performing Arts – when we learned that four members of the Two Rivers Marketing team died when the small plane they were aboard crashed near South Bend, Ind., on Nov. 13.

Losses like these are hard to absorb. Though no less a tragedy in that her life was cut short when she still had so much energy and creative endeavors to share, we took some solace in the end to Mo’s suffering. With Tom Dunphy, Leslie O’Bannon, Eric Jacobs and Josh Trainor, the unthinkable happened.

I didn’t know Tom Dunphy, Two Rivers Marketing’s co-founder and president, all that well. I do know that he and his business partner, Brian Jones, created a company with a corporate culture I’d like to bottle and pass around the city. I liked the fact that no one gets hung up on titles and positions at the company and that Dunphy and Jones became the kind of bosses they wish they’d had when they were working their way up to the top of their fields.

Like Mo Dana, Dunphy had an irrepressible spirit and an infectious smile that would spread to the most dour among us. I’ve interviewed him several times since coming to the Business Record five years ago, and I always left his place happier than when I went in. My impression was that he was one of the happiest people in the city, and a peek at the tribute page on the company’s Web site reinforces that.

“I have found myself quite often the past few days reflecting on my time at Two Rivers, then only to notice that I am smiling and goosebumps have covered my body. Two Rivers and the people who work there are a testament to what Tom Dunphy was all about: Family,” wrote Jonathan Lee, a former employee of the agency.

Eric Johnston, the golf pro at Glen Oaks Country Club, where Dunphy loved to play golf, called him “the guy, that when you saw his name on the tee sheet to play golf, [you knew] something was going to happen to make you laugh.” Another Glen Oaks employee, Matt Wilson, recalled him as being “always full of energy, life and armed with something funny to say.”

Con and Diane Reha of Lincoln, Neb., who have known Dunphy since he was a youngster, said he “always had a fantastic attitude, a sense for right and wrong, and an innate ability to understand the qualities it takes to be a great leader and, plainly, a very good person.”

Throughout the city last week, the raw nerve of grief was exposed on faces at every turn. Perhaps they were reassessing their own lives or trying to recall the last time they told a spouse, child, parent or friend that they loved them, while resolving at the same time to say that more often. Maybe they were regretting a quarrel they’d had or a commitment they didn’t keep.

We have been tragically reminded of the fragility of life, even healthy lives like Tom Dunphy’s and his colleagues’, and the importance of living each day honorably and with purpose.

Beth Dalbey can be reached by e-mail at bethdalbey@bpcdm.com.