I took myself off of Facebook yesterday
for a simple reason: it was too sad for me to stay. Why was it too
sad you may ask? Because of the passing of one of my favorite
authors, Jay Lake.
Jay was diagnosed with colon cancer in
April 2008. He documented his fight with it on his blog. His friends
and fans watched each post on cancer with mixed feelings of hope and
dread, knowing that the cancer could spread from just a single tumor.
It did. It metastasized and progressed into other organs. Over the
last few months, it got worse. He underwent some alternative
treatments through the NIH to see if there was a way to stop it. The
NIH treatments didn't work. Jay returned home and was put on hospice.
He died less than a week later.
The days prior to his death, after the
announcement about the hospice care, my Facebook feed was flooded
with the sight of people commenting on Jay's Facebook feed. Since I
am friends with him on there, many of those posting good wishes and
prayers were visible to me. I posted my own comment on his page and
then thought nothing of it. I expected he'd have a little more time
and we could all deal with it. I never expected him to die so
quickly, even though I know what being put on hospice care means.
Jay passed in the morning of June 1st.
I didn't get the message until the afternoon, when I finally got on
Facebook after being off of it most of the day because of various
things. I saw the outpouring of grief and prayers/thoughts for the
family. I hunted down more information and saw that he'd passed. I
posted my thoughts to his page and my own. And then I got off because
it was too sad for me to stay.
If you're curious about him, go here.
The first of his books I read was Green.
I heard it on audiobook. I hunted it up in print format and then read
the rest of the series. I was slowly making my way through the rest
of the books I could find. I could find them sporadically. My library
held a few, and managed to order in a couple more. I loved his way of
telling a story.
The SFWA blog has posted a great memorial post here. They put the address there of a place that the family has asked donations be sent in Jay's name.
R.I.P. Jay Lake - you are going to be missed.
The SFWA blog has posted a great memorial post here. They put the address there of a place that the family has asked donations be sent in Jay's name.
R.I.P. Jay Lake - you are going to be missed.
Even if you don't personally know someone, but if it's someone you admire, it can be just as heartbreaking to deal with. I hope his family is doing okay in this tough time.
ReplyDeleteI hope his family is doing okay too. It's never easy to lose a loved one.
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