My Meditation on Abby Hafer

This is perhaps one of the hardest essays that I’ve ever written for The Humanist. Not because words fail me, but because each time I type, I must hold back emotions so as to not saturate my keyboard with tears. My dear friend (our dear friend), my co-author, and our fellow AHA Board Member, Dr. Abby Hafer passed away on July 31st in hospice care.

According to her husband Alan, she drifted back to the universe, with her usual dignity and grace, as he lay next to her sleeping in her hospital bed.

Abby was an extraordinary individual. All those who knew her, whether it was through her teaching, her presentations at so many science and humanist conferences, or through her many connections to the UU and local activist communities, would agree that Abby was a special, talented, super-smart and caring person.

I was so captured by her intelligence that after she spoke at a secular event in Manhattan, it was apparent that we’d work together some day. Within a few weeks of that meeting, I offered Abby a co-authorship on a book that I was under contract to write for the Humanist Press. She accepted and away we went, almost two years of drafts, working at a distance and sometimes side-by-side, and by November 2019, on the 160th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species, we published our Darwin’s Apostles.

We were ready to barnstorm the nation. Both together and apart to boost the book.

Unfortunately, by March of 2020, our dreams were held hostage like everyone’s else’s plans by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abby was certainly a scholar. Her first book, The Not So Intelligent Designer, was a smash and it drew praise both from the scientific community as well as amongst our atheist and humanist brethren.

But Abby was more than a one hit wonder. Her commitment to the causes she cared deeply about, like the environment, social justice and the acceptance of science, would push her into public service at home and nationally. As an earnest and important member of the AHA Board, she worked on committees and helped support the organization through incredible transition, up till and through our new leadership under Fish Stark.

If you met Abby for more than a minute, you knew you were talking to someone who gave a damn. Who understood the importance of honesty, integrity and being a kind rational person. But I don’t want to make it appear she didn’t laugh or make others feel great to be around her. She had a great sense of New England humor, biting and totally enjoyable.

Abby’s light may be doused now, but her teaching and activist work, her memory and her writings live on for others to connect to and move her ideas forward.

Certainly, with the loss of Abby Hafer, we must acknowledge that the world is a bit darker. But we should not be crushed by her physical absence. Abby wouldn’t want us moping around. She’d want us out celebrating her life, celebrating all our lives, celebrating nature and working to make the world a better place.

So, in the name of Abby Hafer, and luminaries like Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and so many others…let’s get on with the work and leave the planet better for their and our future generations.