Prompt: An Ode to Ed

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Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.

I'm grateful that this prompt graced my dashboard, because it's giving me the chance to write about someone who ... I think vastly changed my life without even knowing it. And even though he passed away in 2018, his influence remains in my life, even if his extended family has no idea who I am. That's okay. They don't have to.

His name was Edward Shaffer, or Ed, for short. We met when I was working for a retail giant in the area of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and through being coworkers we became friends. At the time, he was in his fifties, and he lived in Steelton, PA. If I remember correctly, he also had a cat or two that he spoke of fondly on a daily basis.

This is starting to sound like mourning, or a personal eulogy I've never done. But it's true for me, I don't really mourn. I just keep thinking of people who've passed as though they're still around. Just not close by.

Ed was writing a book when he and I were still in-touch, and although I can't remember the name, I do remember it being something along the lines of themes that sound a lot like The Blob. He never published it, not to my knowledge, and as far as I know, he also never finished it.

That's also okay, because I remember it. That doesn't mean I'm going to write it for him, but whatever he imagined, it still lives right here (imagine that my index finger is pointing at my head).

But all of this is more or less, a descriptor of who Ed was to me, and not exactly how he changed my life.

You see, when I was younger, and I mean like, in my early twenties, I wasn't a creator. I didn't really have a twinkle in my eye of an idea of anything I wanted to do. Except for a book. A book loosely based on some fantasy of a zombie apocalypse, because that's what I was obsessed with at the time. And, although it is published today through self-made means, and although if I were writing it today, it'd be a lot different--it exists because of him.

"It's pumpin' and thumpin' time."

Ed, PaxCorpus, 2013

I was struggling a lot with the creative process. I didn't know what to do! How do you even write a book? How do you feel creative.

Ed introduced me to the concept of "flow," and how to get it going, and how to only "make" things, or write, when that happens. And he was right.

He coached me, and he was my idea-bouncer for years. And for a while, and although we never had the chance to hang out much outside of the job, he was almost like family to me. I remember the last time we sat down, though, at a pizza shop, and we talked about all manner of things for well over and hour. I think at the time he was trying to understand me, and what I was going through.

The last time we spoke it wasn't exactly on the best terms, as I was in a lot of turmoil in my life, and in a way I kind of forsake him for things I don't even think I fully understood at the time. And for that, I'm sorry, Ed. I truly am. I know I can never say those words to you, and you can never tell me that I'm forgiven, but I apologize for making our last interaction a negative one.

I wish I could have been around a few more years, at least so that I could have said goodbye.

Because it was you who taught me how to be a person who MAKES things. A writer, a musician, a designer, an ARTIST. That's all because of YOU.

You're gone now, and you've been that way for some time, and hell, I don't even know how to access your obituary, or where your grave site is. But you're alive in my head, and you never went anywhere. Not really.

Thanks for all that you did for me, and all that you continue to do. Until we meet again.