Because of Dave Farland
Finally extracting a tribute to Dave Farland from my grief, after his unfair passing on January 14, 2022.
Because of Dave…
These are the first words I’ve written since January 14, 2022.
I feel strangely sandwiched between two tragedies.
During the two years between April 22, 2019, the day I nearly died, and January 14, 2022, I discovered David Farland. My dulled, forgotten dream of a future as a writer was sharpened into something glittering, pointed straight up at the heavens of potentiality. Fueled and ready, the countdown blurred by without my remarking its passing, and together we blew through the safety and restriction of the atmosphere into the vast openness of the terrible heavens.
Then on one January day observed only by the Earth inhabitants below, when I was out on a tether, prepping for my first solo spacewalk—preparing my first real manuscript for real editor eyes—the door slammed.
My tether was sheared clean, my oxygen and supply lines cut.
Since then, I’ve been drifting, frozen, unable to move a word from my mind onto a page.
Is there anyone out there to rescue me?
Or have I yet to glance down in despair only to discover the thrusters and guidance systems my mentor had built into my suit long before we ever left Earth?
It may take me a few days, weeks, even months of flailing, of crying, of hoping for a new outcome to materialize: scintillating improbability rising from the concretion of entropic past.
But I will finally find the switch and flip it on amidst a fresh veil of tears.
And then I’ll move forward, past the accident, past the point of damage, into a future that he has prepared me for. I’ll go forth in the spaceship and spacesuit built of the wisdom of his years, the kindness of his Neptune-blue eyes, the expertise of his worn hands.
Thank you, Dave.
See you on the other side of this tragedy sandwich, and on the other side of the galaxy.
…my first book won’t be my last.
