To go where no one has gone before

Been enjoying the posts for Helen (here, here, here, here, and here).

And indeed she was a fine activist, teacher, wife, and everything everyone mentioned and more. In the last few months, people were constantly dropping by. She would be sitting in her "thrown" this adjustable chair that allowed her to stand and sit easily, by the window filled with "Heaven's Bamboo." Opposite her people could sit in a single armed chair or crowd on the futuon to the side. But it was in that chair, I would watch and people would find various revelations of their lives. It's as if Helen was instinctively practicing the Buddhist monk method of gathering the negativity of the world and transforming it to positivity. They had a rule, no negativity when people entered the door. In many ways it forced people to see their lives differently. I watched one woman gain revelations about the immigrant parent relationship she had with her two daughters. Another woman became determined to accept herself as a writer and artist, as opposed to someone who wrote occassionally. I'm sure everyone who sat in that chair found something new about themselves.

But what I often appreciated about Helen, is that she was the biggest Sci-Fi geek. When she could no longer work, she caught up on all her sci-fi station programs. She read every Harry Potter book and watched every movie. She read and watched the Lord of the Ring books and extended movies. Her dvd collection not only had Dune (with Sting), but Dune the miniseries, and the Children of Dune. And she was a devoted Star Trek Fan, watched the old series, the next generation, deep space nine, voyager and enterprise even when the writing wasn't so great.

When there was a conference once in Vegas, we talked about when we could sneak away to catch the Star Trek tour at the Las Vegas Hilton. I mean, you have to have your priorities.

A few of us went to her place to watch the "Enterprise" season premiere and joked about the various Asian characters from the series either being really wimpy or not being utilized enough. Why didn't Tchakote get enough love interests and why Hochi whined a lot or why Ensign Kim was such a geek and only got game with holodeck characters and was a total wuss when the Klingon woman had interest in him.

We watched sci-fi because we said we were "post-modern" creatures at heart. We would discuss characters like they were our neighbors, gossiping about their relationships. How humans were kind of wimpy, all the people of color related to Klingons, and well wouldn't a tricorder be really really cool someday?

Helen, you were an honorable warrior and fought a valiant battle, Kahless awaits you in Sto-vo-kor.