Highly Illogical

"Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most....human." I heard these words in my head twenty years ago. It was at the funeral of my father, and the inside joke was that we were returning Spock's brain to Genesis. We were returning my father to the land that gave him strength. We weren't crying. We were laughing. Sitting in the front pew of the church on the day of my father's funeral, we were laughing. It was highly illogical. It was highly emotional. Somehow, that memory of Spock's funeral gave me the strength to process my own grief. Our grief. And somewhere in the background, bagpipes played "Amazing Grace." 

I want to believe that somewhere in this galaxy, or one nearby, bagpipes will be playing "Amazing Grace" again. For Spock. For the man who was Spock, Leonard Nimoy. Mister Nimoy passed away last week at the age of eighty-three. Getting all emotional about the passing of a man who had lived a full and, by his own account, happy life would be illogical. Just like us humans to go for the less than logical response. It is logical that the outcome of many years of smoking led to obstructive pulmonary disease. As Bones might say, "Damn that Vulcan anatomy!"

None of us are meant to be immortal. The gift of being a TV or movie star is that your work can linger on past the flesh and blood. Back in the eighties, fifteen years after the original "Star Trek" series aired, my friends would gather in a dorm room, staring at the black and white set, listening to the dialogue more than squinting at the little screen, and through that haze of beers and weed, after twenty minutes someone would say, "Hey. I think I've seen this one." Of course you have. We all have. That show was a big enough deal to give the first space shuttle its name. 

It's also the name of our car. We put little stickers on our white Prius, spelling out the call letters of the Enterprise: NCC-1701. There's a homeless lady who stands at the corner a couple blocks from our house, and when we pull up to the stop light where she's standing, she doesn't wave. She raises her hand in a salute. The one that means, "Live long and prosper." It makes us smile. Spock's brain has returned to Genesis. 

Aloha, Leonard. You stomped on the Terra. And galaxies beyond.