I'll never forget the first time I realized I had a dead man's voice on my recorder.
It was fall 2010, and I was entering my seventh month writing for Buzz Weekly for no pay, working part-time at Wal-Mart and generally feeling I'd wasted my time getting a creative writing degree. My lovely girlfriend and my continued involvement with New Revels Players made me feel a little better, but overall it was a bland time in my life.
For one of my last assignments on Buzz I was assigned the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra's holiday concert. I jumped at the opportunity; I'd written about CUSO that summer for an outdoor event, and I was ready to revisit my source, Executive Director Joe Dingee, who took fifteen minutes after our interview to answer my questions about his past and path to Champaign. I couldn't wait to call him; here was an enormously successful, friendly man who carved out a niche in a community I loved, and his wisdom could only help me on my path to the same.
When I called his number at CUSO, however, a woman answered. Interim Executive Director Jeffrey Farlow-Cornell gave me a cryptic "Joe's not with us anymore" and answered my interview questions, leaving Google and me to find out the truth that night: the vibrant 40-something I enjoyed a single hour with had gone from this Earth forever. I called my parents, both in their early 50's at that point, mournfully searched my voice recorder's archives for Dingee's tenor and wiped it from my hard drive.
I was reminded of that experience today when I read my colleague Mishele Wright's coverage of Joshua Larkin, a 21-year-old Taylor University student who passed away Wednesday. I knew the name instantly; it was only two months ago that I interviewed Larkin about his trip with several other TU students to the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Larkin's death is the same as Dingee's - I talked only once to each of them but had a good time, better than most sources - but also completely different. Dingee's death, while tragic, came after he realized his potential. Larkin, on the other hand, had just begun to reveal his.
Death, it would seem, has a sense of humor, or at least irony. Just like Joe took a shine to me, a just-graduated, confused reporter aiming to make a mark, I admired Joshua's creativity and wished him well in his writing and photojournalism career. While I eventually found the kind of niche Dingee and I talked about, Larkin will never create the film script he pitched to me just weeks ago.
I don't have a recording of Joshua Larkin to erase; I stopped using a voice recorder a few months ago, and the markings I use to collect interviews in my notebook rendered his words unintelligible even to me as soon as I moved on to my next project. But tonight I will call my now-21-year-old girlfriend, make sure she's doing okay and hope the Grim Reaper stays away from my address book a little longer next time.
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