Dianna Borsi O'Brien, freelance writer

On February 10, 2009, Charles W. Gehrke bade goodbye to this world, with his daughter Susan Gehrke Isaacson and son Jon Gehrke at his side. He’d said goodbye to all nine of his beloved grandchildren over the weekend.

And I had said goodbye to him.  It wasn’t easy. I’ve spent nearly two years working with him, collecting his memories, taking down dates and sorting his amazingly long list of accomplishments into some kind of order. The result will be the book we’ve been working on From the Melon Fields to the Moon. In fact, one of our last meetings on February 1st we talked about this title. Despite the fact that Charles was in a rehabilitation hospital to get his strength back after being hospitalized earlier, he wanted to work. He wanted to discuss the book — and he wanted to remind me about the book’s subtitle: A Scientific Journey. But I told him, I don’t like subtitles. He insisted. I disagreed again, telling him it made the title too long. He persisted. So I got my notebook out and wrote it down. Ok, subtitle, A Scientific Journey.

Then I put my notebook away, thinking Charles might be tired, he might want to rest and he said, “You’re going to have to take more notes than that,” and we went back to work.

That was Charles.  Always ready to work.

But Charles also was a joy to work with. He could have said it was his book; he’d contracted with me to write it. But he never did. He always said it was our book. And that, too, was Charles, always ready to share the credit.

So how do you say good bye to someone like that? Well, I’m lucky. I’m not saying good bye to him just yet. I’m still finishing the book and working on a website to highlight his accomplishments and this and another forthcoming book. Maybe then I’ll be ready to say good bye.