[Spotlight Post] Leonard Nimoy – The Final Farewell
I always have been, and always shall be, your friend.
Today has been a challenge. Dallas/Fort Worth has endured Winter Weather conditions all week, making commutes a…challenge. Today we ended up with several inches of snow (which is a lot for us) during the work day. While watching the beauty (and danger) of the deteriorating weather, the news hit of the passing of Leonard Nimoy.
From Gawker Newsfeed
Leonard Nimoy is, was, and always will be a Science Fiction Icon. He embodied one of the most recognizable characters ever created. I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t know where “Live Long and Prosper” came from. He brought Spock to life – an alien who co-existed with Humans, worked with them, and didn’t (necessarily) want to kill all the Humans he came into contact with. He brought us the idea of a race of beings who embrace logic, try to subsume emotion – which provided hours of entertainment by creating the Ultimate Comedic Straight Man.
I’ve always loved the love/hate bickering relationship between Spock and McCoy. It’s a type of chemistry-laden, dynamic character relationship that I’ve always wanted to create. I know part of that was the chemistry between Nimoy and DeForest Kelly (which I hope Dee met Nimoy at the gates with some witty line like: “It’s about time you got here, you green-blooded hobgoblin”). I get why he rebelled against the part for awhile – Nimoy really was so much more than Spock – but Spock is why so many of us are who we are now. The kids that went into science that are now changing the world because a weird dude with pointy ears did science, so they could to. The writers who, like me, wanted to be worthy of creating stories and characters that resonated like these did.
Found on the Internet.
These passings are always inevitable. But Star Trek and Spock were so part of not only my life – but also the lives of everyone I consider part of my “tribe”, my Community – that Nimoy’s passing hit hard. My Social Media feeds today – with INCHES OF SNOW IN OUR AREA – was 90% Nimoy’s passing. I lost count of how many times the Wrath of Kahn funeral scene was linked on my Facebook Feed. I can’t watch that. Not today. Because today, it’s not the farewell to a character that can find a way back – it’s the FINAL Farewell to the man who brought life to the character.
Mr. Nimoy, I never got to meet you, but you were so important to me, to people I know and care about. We will miss you. We will toast your parting at our conventions. You will go to the stars with every astronaut, every daydream, and every future discovery. We want your family and close friends to know that we mourn with them – to paraphrase the Mind Meld – their grief is our grief, their mourning is our mourning. And though it’s not an exact paraphrase… The Grief of the Many Joins the Grief of the One or the Few.
Boldly Go, Mr. Nimoy, your Final Frontier awaits.