Whenever we lose someone who impacted us its always difficult to process at first. You’re instinct is to cry. After the tears cry you get a moment to process it all. This is when you can put your feelings into words.
Patrick Stewart had long enough and broad enough of a career his work is sure to have left a mark on most people in some way or another. For many its is theater work as he was a legit thespian with an undying love of the craft. Others will see him as their favorite Star Trek captain while myself and many more will always remember him as Professor Charles Xavier in our beloved X-Men films.
I could spend a whole day writing about how important X-Men as a franchise is to me. Yet I hate diminishing something so powerful to merely another form of souless “content” we consume to distract us. X-Men is more powerful to me than that. I honestly don’t know if I can dig into the recesses of my mind and sum up exactly how I felt the first time I sat in a movie theater watching that first X-Men film when he came on screen. I am sure I smiled, maybe cheered along with the crowd? I do know I went back to theaters to see that movie multiple times that summer. I even went out of my way to beg my parents to take me and my sisters to see it at the Drive In.
Yes I also watched Star Trek The Next Generation. It was the first Star Trek Tv series produced in my lifetime. I was about 5 years old when it debuted on TV. I watched the first few episodes with my mom before losing interest. I was probably too young to get into Star Trek at the time, maybe, but as time went on I learned it really just wasn’t my thing. In an effort to not dismiss his role in that series, I will just say First Contact is my favorite Star Trek movie out of all of them.
As a queer woman I don’t have to explain how or why X-Men resonated with me so much. I just know that I never saw Patrick Stewart on film when I delved into those X-Men movies. I just saw Professor Xavier standing up for the rights of a minority group being unfairly targeted for extermination by their own government. This is an experience that hits a little too close to home these days for us trans folks.
I don’t feel like I have the mental or emotional spoons to say much else at this time. Rest in Peace Professor, you fought the good fight and we are all eternally grateful for that.
