Family, Loss, and How They Inspire the Stories We Tell
Every story begins somewhere. Sometimes it starts with an idea, sometimes with a dream, and sometimes with a memory that refuses to fade. For me, it began with the people who shaped my life, my family. Family gives us roots. It gives us the courage to fall, to learn, to grow, and to keep moving forward even when the world changes around us. And when we lose someone we love, that foundation doesn’t disappear. It simply takes a new shape, one that reminds us who we are and why we keep going.
When I lost my mother to cancer, she was 61 and I was 36. It was one of those moments in life that forces you to stop everything and see the world differently. I had to put my life on hold to take care of my father for six months. Those were difficult days, but they taught me more about patience, compassion, and love than any classroom or career ever could. I was lucky, though. I have a sister who’s always been there for me and a wife who loves and supports me. That makes all the difference. But those experiences changed how I see people, how I write, and how I understand loss.
When I created Philip Anders, I wanted to explore what solitude really means, not just physical isolation, but emotional distance. Philip lost both his parents while he was still in school. He’s an only child, and that loneliness defines him in ways he doesn’t always realize. He hides it behind science, behind logic, behind the thrill of discovery. But deep down, his search for meaning, his desire to reach beyond the stars, is really about connection.
It wasn’t easy for me to imagine that kind of emptiness. I’ve been fortunate to have people who anchor me, even in the hardest times. But writing Philip helped me understand what that absence feels like. It forced me to dig deeper into my own memories, to draw from moments when I felt loss, uncertainty, and the need to find purpose again.
In that sense, writing became therapy. Through Philip, I revisited my own emotions, and in doing so, I discovered a truth I hadn’t seen clearly before, that love and loss are two sides of the same coin. The people we lose don’t vanish. They live on in our choices, our stories, and the quiet strength we carry forward. That’s what family does, even when they’re gone, they continue to guide us.
As I work on the second book of the Starborn Trilogy, these ideas are even more present in my mind. Philip’s journey is about much more than faster-than-light travel. It’s about finding light in the darkness, about realizing that even in the vast silence of space, we’re never truly alone. We carry the people who shaped us wherever we go. Maybe that’s the real legacy of love. Not the moments we shared, but the parts of them that stay with us, the parts that whisper, even across the stars, keep going.
David P. Lloyd 