Derek K. Miller

By
Dan Misener
– May 5, 2011Posted in: Updates

Derek K. Miller was a Vancouver writer, musician, husband and dad. He was also a blogger, podcaster, and an important part of Canada’s social media community.

After Derek was diagnosed with cancer, he continued to blog, including about his illness. He was unflinchingly clear headed, open, and philosophical about it. He became a source of revelation and inspiration to the many people who read his blog.

Derek died on May 3, 2011. He was 41.

From his last blog post:

Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

Back in April 2008, Nora talked to Derek about our online legacies, and what should become of them when we die. When Nora asked him about the value of a public online legacy, Derek said:

I’m not somebody who’s at all spiritual. So I think of whatever legacy there’s going to be of me as the ideas and the things that I leave behind.

Something like a website, the nice thing about it, at least in my perspective, is that anybody can look at it. It’s not something like your photo album that’s in your attic… or the china pattern, or all the jewelery you’ve accumulated, or the magazines you had, or whatever.

It doesn’t have that immediacy of the smell of your old shirt. But what it does have is an ability for anybody who might be interested in what you were to look at it.

Derek’s last post, like so much of what he wrote, is well worth the read. You can find more of Derek’s words at penmachine.com, and you can listen to Nora’s interview with Derek here.

Tags: