One week ago today, our close friend, also Mike's boss, passed away due
to injuries from a car accident. He was in Playas, on his way home. We
were at his house, with his wife, from the time they were talking about
air lifting him to El Paso to well after the bad news came in. We've
been there through helping pick pictures for the funeral program, and I
found the best and worst song for the end of the slideshow. The name of
the song is "The Funeral," a song from Firefly, in the episode "The
Message." It was filmed just after they found out it was being
cancelled. The looks on everyone's faces in that episode mirrored what
all of us felt. And since it was one of his favorite shows, I think
Clay would have been proud and honored by the send off. The slideshow
started with the opening fanfare from Star Wars, and had the song from
Princess Bride, Storybook Story. It's been so hard to see his wife go
through this, and not worry about Mike, and how many times he's been to
Playas.
Some people said some really helpful things...like Clay is now in a
place where the network never goes down, and he's not stressed anymore.
Clay and Jennifer never had children of their own, and Jessi told me
that Clay did have kids. We met the procession of guys that started
working for Clay when they were undergraduates (19, 20 years old) and
he helped them realize their potential and become successful adults.
Mike is one of the most recent of those kids. The funeral really
helped. Some of the things that happened afterward did not. Poor Mike
has to go to work every day, deal with the changes resulting from this,
and see what Clay put a lot of his life into.
Some people deal with loss in different ways. I clean under the couch,
behind the toilet, I dust. I hate dusting. I unwrapped all the cords
from the video game controllers and wrapped the controller cables with
velcro ties. I bought Mike all new underwear. Words are so crude and
inefficient at expressing emotions that are just boiling out of my
ears...
We're so glad we had the opportunity to skip work to go see Star Wars
Episode III and stuff ourselves silly at Toucano's, and dress up to go
to Serenity. We're glad we got to watch and talk about so much
Battlestar Galactica. Thank you for always waving, even when it was
just me in the car. We'll miss passing you and Jennifer on the road to
and from work. We'll miss playing board games. (Who's Mae West?) Thank
you for leaving us with so many good memories. I'm glad it happened.
Captain, your crew will miss you dearly.