I remember a comment my mother made about the difficulties of growing older: “Wait till your friends start dying.” At the time, she was about the age I am now, and while I knew what it was like to have both of my husbands die, her words stopped me in my tracks because losing my friends hadn’t occurred to me. It’s only now that I know the full extent of what she meant because a week ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends, David Monroe, was killed in a freak accident. He was crushed under the weight of a 5,000-pound jet engine that fell on top of him.
I know all the details, and they’re tragic and unimaginable, but somehow his death doesn’t seem real.
David Monroe and I’ve been friends since he was 16, and I was 20, and he came to work as a summer intern at my first husband’s company, Datapoint Corporation. Even at an early age, it was easy to see that David was brilliant, and by 27, he was VP of Datapoint. He followed me and Philip to Silicon Valley and went to work for another one of Philip’s companies, and since none of us knew anyone in California, we depended on our friendships with one another. David went on to start numerous high-tech companies, gain Top Secret clearances, build secret black boxes for the government, start a world class science and technology museum, and have dozens of patents issued in his name. In the field of technology, he was a giant among giants.
Photo by Brenda Coffee
One of his patents is for the camera in your cellphone.
If you read my book, MAYA BLUE, I mentioned David several times, but I changed his name to Stephen. He’s the one I called when Philip was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I vividly remember the two of us sitting on the floor in the medical school library, crying, because we realized Philip wouldn’t be with us much longer. David flew to Houston with me to interview oncologists, and when I did a hostile takeover of the company that manufactured Philip’s smokeless cigarette, the first vape, David suggested a lawyer for me to call. But he went beyond the call of duty when he joined the company’s board of directors. For liability reasons, he didn’t want to sit on the board of a public company, much less one with a product that contained nicotine, but he did it because I asked him. Because he always had my best interest at heart.
When I returned from Guatemala, he could tell something terrible had happened to me, and after talking with him, he introduced me to a physician, who also specialized in hypnosis. If it hadn’t been for David, I don’t know how I would have managed what I now know was PTSD and what turned into my chronic inability to feel safe enough to go to sleep.
I’m having trouble processing that we’ll never text, have lunch together again, or have another one of our four-hour marathon conversations where we talk about what we’re doing; what’s happening in the world, and the ever present question between old friends, “Remember when we… ?”
The first personal computer, invented by my late husband, Jon Philip Ray. David Monroe contributed to the coding architecture of the first microprocessor–also invented by Jon Philip Ray–that’s in this computer. Photo by Brenda Coffee
David’s death and the unthinkable way he died is never far from my thoughts. This afternoon I said, out loud, “I can’t wrap my head around this, God!” And I can’t. Perhaps it’s his sudden death and the way it happened that’s so haunting. If he’d died of a disease, and we knew his time was limited, we could’ve gotten used to the idea, but that choice was taken from all of us when a 5000-pound jet engine fell on top of him.
The other day, I emailed a new friend and told her how grateful I was for her friendship and what it means to have her in my life. And with my older friends, I’m trying to tell them how much I love them and ask them to please stay safe and well. One of those friends is coming for dinner, tonight.
I’ve known him almost as long as David and I knew one another. This friend is a foodie and a fabulous cook. He’s the one I made the lobster and corn chowder for a few weeks ago, and tonight, I’m making him mushroom bourguignon over parmesan polenta and a steak.
When’s the last time you told your friends how much you loved them? How much you appreciate them? David knew I loved him because I would always say, “I love you, sweet man. I’m so glad you’re in my life.” Don’t wait to express how you feel about your friends because the opportunity can vanish in the blink of an eye.
