Bumps in the Road

My father passed away in April. It happened during the production week for the magazine — a week when the Products Finishing team finalizes the layout, performs a final proofread, places all the advertisements and basically does everything we can to make sure we got the issue right.

I was checking in with the team whenever possible, working from my father’s home in Waynesville, N.C. — a rural town in the Great Smoky Mountains, a stone’s throw from the Tennessee border. My dad owned no computer, had no internet and lived in a “holler.” My cell service wasn’t the greatest. For wi-fi, I relied on the kindness of neighbors and the small library where I used to spend my junior high hours after school doing my homework.

The distraction of putting the finishing touches on our May issue while also coordinating funeral arrangements was a way to keep myself moving forward during a sad and surreal week. There were moments when the reality of what I was experiencing hit me, but for much of it, I was simply in survival mode. I had a list of things to do and a finite amount of time to check them off the list.

In the times when I allowed myself to reflect on my situation, I also found myself thinking about losses experienced by those near to me over the past couple of years. I have several friends who had lost their parents to COVID. People near to me have battled with cancer, some ultimately losing the fight as my father did. As a society, so many of us have spent the past two years in a constant “survival mode.”

I’m not writing this to say “these are hard times.” The pandemic has certainly brought its share of suffering. But so many times in history have presented their own fight. Rising above adversity is part of what helps us grow into our next version of ourselves and happiness is not a finish line, but something that must be found in the midst of all of the difficulties, frustrations and even tragedies.

In recent weeks I learned that a well-loved figure in the finishing community, David Epner, president of Epner Technology in Brookly N.Y., has passed away. David and the folks at Epner Technology have been friends to the magazine for years. David was one of the first people to reach out to me when I stepped into my new role at PF. He was so kind in welcoming me to an industry where I was just starting to find my way and fit into a new role. David and I had several conversations where he offered everything from advice about the industry to his ideas about investing in gold, which he knew a thing or two about (Epner Technology has coated a range of applications from parts for NASA missions to Oscar statues with its proprietary Laser Gold process). He sent my daughters gold-plated pennies addressed to each of them individually. I know for many in the industry, David was a mentor. I didn’t have a chance to meet him in person, but he was certainly a great guy with fun stories. I’m grateful for the times I talked with him and will always think of him whenever I see something gold-plated. My heart goes out to his family and his colleagues.

There will always be losses — sometimes devastating ones. But we embrace the good times and the memories and the things we learn along the way. Those things make us more than who we were before.

It’s been a month since my dad’s funeral. I’ve spent this issue’s production week with a case of COVID-19, which I think I picked up during a trip to Nashville to catch one of my favorite bands from my youth. Luckily, my bout with COVID seems to be a mild one, but not without the worries of exposing family, friends and coworkers. If I could turn back time, would I change my decision to go to the show? I don’t know how to answer that. It was a weighty decision the first time I made it. There were precautions, but honestly, no matter what you do, the virus is out there. What I can say is that I’m glad to have seen Jawbreaker on the last night of their reunion tour.

The point is, the bumps in the road will always be there. But what are you going to do about it? Our work goes on. Our lives go on. To paraphrase some Jawbreaker lyrics, we have to keep reinventing ourselves — move or die. My dad would roll his eyes at that. He was always a bit more direct. He’d just tell you to “get on with it.”