Giants, by Carla Damron

This is the year that we lost giants. 2016 is only six months old, but it’s taken some incredible artists and heroes. Each of them left us far too soon.

I was NOT ready to lose David Bowie. He died a few days after his birthday, and right after his much awaited album was launched. Bowie was an artist like none other, a man who reinvented himself driven not by a need for “Fame,” but by an internal and artistic calling. I needed more music from him. I wanted to see what his next incarnation would be.

Alan Rickman has long been one of my favorite actors.  The man had incredible range, and his voice is so distinctive I will never read a line from Severus Snape without hearing his sizzling “S’s.” He is the reason that I adore GALAXY QUEST, and his performance in ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES is the one thing redeemable about that movie. I can only imagine what kind of character actor he would have been in his seventies and eighties, but he was taken in his prime. 

Prince, too. I was saddened to learn he’d lived in chronic pain, that his efforts to manage that agony are what led to his death. But I also learned how remarkably generous he’d been, without seeking headlines or glory. He was simply a man who had it to give so he gave it.  The world could have used twenty more years of his genius and philanthropy.

Much has been written about the tragic passing of Pat Conroy in March, and there’s nothing much that I can add. I met him twice, the second time a few months before my novel came out. Pat was the editor-at-large for Story River Books, so I was eager to thank him for publishing my project.  I was so nervous it was like talking to the Pope, but Pat threw his arms around me and made me feel like kin. He wasn’t only a literary genius, he was a generous, passionate human being who took insane pleasure in words and in helping other writers. I wanted to know him better. I wanted to read more of his words. How unfair it is that he left us before his novel was finished.

It might seem odd to write about Elie Wiesel in a blog like this, but we lost him just the other day. A gifted writer and orator, a Holocaust survivor, and a Nobel Laureate, Wiesel changed the world by not letting us ignore history. He leaves a huge footprint on this planet, and we will honor him best by remembering his message of peace and human dignity. We all need it written on our hearts.

I worry about who else we might lose as we enter the second half of 2016; I hope it is kinder to us.  I will keep listening to Prince and Bowie. I will watch Rickman films, and read Wiesel whenever I need to remember the evil and the ultimate goodness in our world.

Pat Conroy’s legacy is a large body of work. It is also a new Pat Conroy Literary Center, to be established near his home in Beaufort, SC. I am happy to contribute to this project, because I know it continues what he started: helping new writers develop their voice.   

Like our other lost giants, Pat Conroy’s spirit lives on.

(If you want to support the literary center, click here: http://patconroyliterarycenter.org/)