LLAP

A few days ago, beloved actor Leonard Nimoy passed away at age 83 after being ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Internet was awash in memories and sadness. I was busy all day but noticed the outpouring on social media. He meant a lot to me, as he did to many science fiction loving people and Star Trek fans. Amid all the sad remembrances, I registered the loss but didn’t quite feel the grief until the comedian/entity known as “God” on Facebook wrote:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That brought the choking up. Mr. Nimoy had been saying goodbye for some time. He tweeted this lovely and sad sentiment to his fans a few days before he died:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what I said on Facebook:

“Several years ago I saw Leonard Nimoy buying baby clothes, presumably for grandchildren. I was terribly star struck, even after living in Los Angeles all these years. Mr. Spock was as important to me as Mr. Rogers when I was a little kid. It’s a sad day.”

What I didn’t say was what I began to realize, was that the character Mr. Spock, like Mr. Rogers, like Carl Sagan, was an important male role model in my life. I watched the show when in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was near the beginning of its long television life in re-runs, probably starting when I was around six years old. My mom said that I adored the show, but that the opening music and whooshing Starship Enterprise made me run into the next room, screaming with fear and excitement. (That’s how I still feel when I am about to see a new and much anticipated bit of science fiction, only I don’t scream out loud anymore.) I liked all of the Star Trek characters, and a small, not-yet-conscious part of me felt a kinship to the only Asian cast member, Mr. Sulu. But Mr. Spock was my favorite character. In the days since his death, Leonard Nimoy has been eulogized for his role as an actor, a patron of the arts, a person who spoke out for social justice, a good colleague and friend. His iconic role as Mr. Spock has described as the heart of the original Star Trek series, which is why, nearly half a century later, his loyal fans are expressing such grief. Mr. Spock’s cool assessments of humanity, his scientific ability and famous reliance on “logic,” were trustworthy beacons of decency and competence in the 1960s, an era when the tectonic plates of culture were shifting.

For me, the reasons were more personal. Mr. Spock (and Mr. Rogers, and later Carl Sagan) were father figures. My father trained as a scientist, but he was also mentally ill and volatile, the opposite of a man in control of his emotions. I discovered Mr. Spock at a fortunate moment, I realized earlier this week. While I watched him on TV in the mid-1970s, my own father was losing his logical abilities, about to leave our home and live on his own. Having a cold blooded Vulcan across the fuzzy television screen from me was no real replacement for a rational father who could help me make sense of the world. But it did allow me to dream that such things were possible.