March 2, 2024
Dearest Val,
After all the years of wrestling with the challenges of keeping print alive, I am so deeply sad and lost to have you gone. Good God, you were the godfather of
The Sun.
I have waited to write - waited for words and still find them sitting empty next to the suddenness of your dying. It’s like not having any water to drink when I’m thirsty for it … waiting for your next correspondence. I even started to send this writing to you - instinctively, like the deadlines of fifteen or so years. Then, I caught myself about to
send…and caught my breath instead - Val’s not here.
Oh I know, I know, I know all the clever and well-intended slogans slung. I’ve tried to write them all and they landed with a thud. I thought of words like, “we all die someday, at least you didn’t suffer long,” and on and on but that’s not really the truth of how your death feels to me Val.
I’m sorry, I know you’re leaning over a long wood bar in heaven with your beer telling me to
just be me - which you always helped me be. But, truthfully, losing you, for me, is like having tornadoes sweep through Sonoma Valley, ripping off roofs and swooping down on daffodils, lurching at our sweet dogs … it leaves our village less alive –wanting, wondering how to replace what was once a precious newsprint full of bright pictures, captured in
The Sonoma Sun and people on the streets talking about their local lives, quandaries and triumphs.
I don't want to sound dramatic but frankly, your dying is hard. It's just that you were always there.
I had my "deadlines" and you crept up behind them, devotedly, an artist in the field.
Maybe you were a father figure or a friend supporting my voice, I don’t know. I do feel like few people in my life really ever supported my voice, the way you did. Because of your invite, I got to play in the sandbox of writing, along with others, such a quirky wide range of voices…in our valley.
Oh, I know if you were here what you’d say, tell me to stick to the point and focus. So here’s my point…I miss you, I always will. We don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it. Now looking back on my years of life, I see that some people are never replaced. There are no duplicates for you, no edits that can fill the space.
I hope you are smiling and enjoying your reunion with Kathy, your wife of many years who died within months of your leaving.
But, damn it, I miss your deadlines and this one is the toughest one yet.
In Deep Appreciation, Katy Byrne