If you’ve been on social media any time during the first couple weeks of November, you’ve probably have seen the name Daniel Fleetwood, a die-hard Star Wars fan who was diagnosed with terminal cancer whose dying wish was to see The Force Awakens before he died. You probably also saw the fan campaign #forcefordaniel which was started by his wife Ashley to try to get Disney and Lucasfilm to allow Daniel to see the film early. As you may know, Disney and J.J. Abrams stepped up and gave Daniel a private showing of The Force Awakens. Daniel passed away just five days after seeing TFA.
Daniel ultimately got his dying wish. Unless someone from the studios comes forward, we will probably never know how much of an impact the Twitter campaign had on the studio’s decision to allow Daniel to see TFA, but I like to think that the fans had an impact. Having Mark Hamill and John Boyega getting behind it helped, too.
But from a personal point of view I’ve experienced Star Wars fans getting behind me to encourage me during some difficult times in my life, especially during the last year while I was recovering from a stroke and resulting paralysis on the left side of my body, and other complications such as needing to have my gall bladder to be removed. My fellow Coffee With Kenobi bloggers and fellow geeks from Geeks Helping Geeks, spent about three months sending this poster to everyone in those groups to sign. I received this while in an acute long-term care hospital in June. The funny thing is, I didn’t open it right away because I just thought it was a plain R2-D2 poster, but when I opened it I actually found this!
Imagine my surprise when we counted 30 different signatures. This poster had a prominent place in my hospital room, and was the topic of conversation for everyone who walked into the room. Now that I’m home, this poster is the first thing that visitors see when they walk into my room. I received countless number of cards of support from my friends, in addition to the support that I received over the last year since my stroke.
In 2008 my brother passed away suddenly, I received numerous calls of support and some cards, including one from a friend who I still don’t know how she got my address. So that was a special card. I still have those cards because I’m sentimental.
You also have the Force For Change charity.
That’s my story of how Star Wars fans have helped me get over some crappy things in my life. Thank you for reading.
Please feel free to leave a comment below. I try to respond to any and all comments. Or if you like, you can send me an email to joe2@coffeewithkenobi.com. The best place to get in touch is Facebook. I’m also on Twitter, but I don’t post there that much. My Twitter handle is @joe2d2_joe.
Please check out some of our other bloggers here at Coffee With Kenobi. We have a new one that goes up almost every day of the month. We have a number of podcasts that are part of the CWK network. There’s the flagship show, Coffee With Kenobi, as well as Rebel Reactions, Lattes with Leia, Comics with Kenobi, and Legends Library.
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