I always meant to write a letter to Isaac Asimov. I deeply regret that I never did while he was alive. Nevertheless, I wanted to write it anyway. It was the hardest letter I ever wrote. I've had it planned out in my head for years, but when I finally sat down to write it I realized how inadequate words were for what I wanted to convey to him. This is my humble attempt. I hope he would have liked it.
Dear Mr. Asimov,
I met you once. My parents had taken me to a
Star Trek convention when I was seven years old--the only one I ever attended--and as luck would have it, you were giving an
address at the
convention. I didn't attend it. I doubt I even knew who you were at the time. My
parents could have pointed you out to me and told me you were my
long lost Uncle Frank and I would have probably believed them. But I met you nonetheless-and I remember it.
As my parents and I were leaving the convention, we took an
elevator back down to the
lobby of the
hotel. You were the fourth person in the elevator. My parents knew who you were, and I remember my
mother smiling at you with an
amused expression on her
face-which you returned in kind. And then you
glanced down upon me, the giant that you were (both in
stature, compared to me, and
intellectually, as I would find out later), and you gave me the
broadest grin I had ever seen. I believe I
stared dumbly in return.
And in that brief moment, you
blessed me. I'm sure you didn't mean to, and I certainly didn't ask you to. But I like to
pretend that it was
intentional, because sometimes it sure as
hell seems like it was. In that moment, as you stared down into my eyes with your gigantic grin, your entire expression emanated one single
emotion--
hope. Hope that I might become interested in
science fiction. Hope that someday your writings might
influence me as your
heroes no doubt influenced you in your
youth.
Hope that there was still hope for children like me, that we would
embrace the ideas and beliefs that you had spent most of your
adult life trying to instill in others.
If only you knew. In that
brief moment in the elevator, while countless
Trekkies with
uniforms and plastic
pointy ears were buying fake
phasers upstairs at the
vendor booths, you blessed me with the only thing you could offer a seven-year-old: Hope.
Whatever
spark you had ignited within me, it laid on the
backburner for a while. But not forever! During my eighth or ninth year, my local
public library held a
contest open to anyone living in the
district, children and adults alike. Given a list of materials, you had to
rank them in the order you would want to have them with you on a
space shuttle mission. The person whose list most closely resembled
NASA's list would receive a
prize. I won. I went to the library to collect my prize, and would you believe it? The prize was a copy of
Foundation. (This,
incidentally, was the first time that my parents told me who I had met in that elevator, and that it was the very same person who wrote the very same book I was
holding in my
hands.)
I tried to read it. I really did-but I wasn't ready. I got through about fifteen
pages before
giving up on it as one of those "
grownup" books. My mother stuck it on a high
shelf in one of my
closets, figuring that I'd be ready to read it when I was tall enough to reach it. And, as every good eight or nine-year-old would do, I
promptly forgot about the book.
Well, I didn't quite wait until I was tall enough to reach it. I used a
chair to
prop me up. I wasn't actually looking for the book; rather, it fell out from between two
shoeboxes as I was
cleaning out my closet. I was eleven. This time, I got through the book.
It might be more precise to say that I was
consumed by the book. I
struggled mightily, but I didn't give up until I had finished it. When I did, I
bolted downstairs and made my
father take me to the library so I could get my hands on the rest of the
series. I set them in a
stack on my
counter, and I started to read
Foundation and Empire. After that,
Second Foundation. And
Foundation's Edge. And, finally,
Foundation and Earth. I barely did anything else with my time except
go to school and
sleep. It took me over a
month, but I finally finished. When I did finish, I did something rather incredible. I
cried.
I had never been
moved to tears by a book before. As I stared at the
pile of finished books
lying on the floor of my room, I cried for a good solid hour. I was so full of
energy…
idealism…
creativity…hope…that my eleven-year-old body didn't know what to do with itself but cry.
I read everything by you that I could get my hands on after that. The
Robot series, your
autobiography, even the
Norby series. I didn't ever cry again, but I never failed to be utterly inspired by your words.
I'm twenty years old now, well into college and
well-versed in the supposed "great" works of
Shakespeare and many others. Through it all, Foundation has never lost its spot as the
leftmost book on the first shelf of my first
bookcase--
reserved for…well, you figure it out.
Open that book and you will find the pages
yellowed,
dog-eared and even
tattered in places. I've read it more times than I can remember. Each time I do, the
pure hope I felt as a child returns to me…if only for a few hours.
Mr. Asimov, from the
bottom of my heart--
scratch that, from the seven-year-old that still
resides deep in my heart--
thank you.
With warmest regards,