Rest in peace, Edith Gaylord.

I'm hardly what you could call a praying man, but this is nonetheless a call for prayers, good will, and strength.  It is for airgun ace Tom Gaylord, who lost his wife Edith this morning, to what seemed (to me at least) to be a very sudden and unexpected illness.  I must have been expecting a very different result to her falling ill over the last few days, because this actually feels like the proverbial ton of bricks--I'm finding it hard to believe she's gone.

Edith Gaylord

Tom writes a (week)daily blog for Pyramyd Air's "Airgun Academy", and I have been following it for about three years now.  It is a remarkable achievement for a blog, both because of the richness of the content and its impressively vibrant "commentariat", and also because of the deep humanity that runs through both.  Once I started reading daily, it did not take long to figure out that this was a family operation;  behind all of Tom's testing, capture, analysis, writing, and discussion, Edith was all over the place, acting not just as content and site administrator, but also welcome wagon, dispute resolution, liaison to Pyramyd Air's live website and management, and highly qualified content contributor in her own right.  In terms of the figure she cut with just her online presence, Edith often reminded me of no less than Janelle Cooper, "The Countess" to the late Col. Jeff Cooper--the "Janelle" of my own daughter's middle name.

I'm still really not sure how just the two of them could have created the amazing resource that this blog has become, and is.  And I mean this as a technologist, and as a writer, and as an enthusiast at the same time.  It is in no way adequate to say that the blog will miss her dearly.

And of course I can only imagine how devastating it must be for Tom.  A bit more context may yet emerge--apparently Edith wanted him to tell "us" (the blog's commentariat) what happened, and he yet may--but whatever we may learn, it is still gonna go down as too fast...tragically too fast.

And so a good man now needs strength.  Please consider sharing what you can, of your prayers, your thoughts, and your good will.