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Rodney Lain was my friend and now he's gone. We've lost a very good man.
Good Night Rodney
by Del Miller
June 17, 2002
Rodney was my friend. Two weeks ago he and I were talking about a visit. We only lived a day's drive from each other and we spoke about how good it would be to get together. Now I find that Rodney is gone.
How can this be?
I first met Rodney in San Francisco at MacWorld 2000. We ended up sitting together in a darkened bar talking about all sorts of things. He was smart and funny and projected a depth of spirit and a fullness of life; I liked him immediately. He told me there that it was one of my stories that had prompted him to begin writing for the Macintosh world. I'm flattered still.
Rodney raised the standard for our little journalistic niche. His enormous intellect and creativity were fired by an energy that came from deep within. He didn't just talk about passion, he was passion and it showed in everything he wrote. He brought a new life to the dialog that we read on these pages. For him to take his own life is such sublime and sorrowful irony.
So here I sit with the spectre of death around me, struggling to make sense of it all. Forgive me for my spluttering attempts to frame my thoughts and feelings but there are some things for which words are of little use.
Why do I feel so angry? Am I angered at Rodney for not reaching out to me, his friend, for the understanding and support that I would so liked to have given him? Or am I angry at myself for not having somehow divined the torment that he was feeling? Maybe it's only rage at the sense of loss and the terrible waste of such a good human being and such a promising life. Is it the helplessness that I feel in the face of a sad reality that I can do nothing to change? Or perhaps it's simply the way that we mortal creatures deal with the fate that awaits us all.
Last year, Rodney wrote a story to which he pinned an ancient quote: "The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself." I suspect that is true and there is some consolation that he is now at peace. But what is left is a sense of loss for those of us left behind and a deep hurt that the disease that took away Rodney's hope had made his life seem not worth living.
What courage he had to fight that horrible demon, all the while showing the world a face full of life and brotherhood and smiling good cheer. I wish that he hadn't been so brave. I wish that he had told me. I wish that I could turn back time.
But he didn't and I cant' and all that is left for me to do is to glean something good from this terrible thing. I can look anew at those around me, peer a little deeper into their eyes, understand them a little more and try to be a better friend.
In the final analysis, our stories are the only things that we can both leave behind us and take with us when we go. Rodney's stories made us think and made us feel and now they will make us remember him and hold him in our hearts.
To Irma, his wife, I can only say that on the other side of grief is a better place. It is further away than you would like but not as far as you might think. In that place the memories come back, not sad, not even bittersweet, but full of warmth and love and the good times that you never ever forget. It will seem that he never really went away.
Rodney once wrote that, "All Mac users get to go to heaven when they die."
I'll see ya there, Rodney. Good night.
Copyright 2001, Del Miller. All rights reserved.
Del also writes the "Difference Engine" column at www.macopinion.com
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