Journal SolemnDragon's Journal: In Memoriam, Bluefairee 9
http://slashdot.org/~dubiousdave/journal/101215
Oke. I'd like to start by saying that i don't have any information that the rest of you don't. I'm not writing this as an inner member of her circle.
I'm writing this because i'm sad over the death of someone i didn't know very well, but think we all would really have liked. And because i'm still really amazed by how good and kind one of our circle was in trying to help her.
I spoke to her by phone, as a number of you have, but not in immediate recent days. She had my number just like she had yours. What she was going through was too big for her to reach out successfully through, i guess. I don't know.
In truth, we'll never know. We never got the chance to meet her, to know what she was like over the course of her days. Dubious Dave did, though, and since i know hom somewhat better, i trust his judgment on the fact that she was worth knowing, whatever she was going through.
She had a wonderful laugh. I notice people's laughs, even over the phone.
I know some of you will think it presumptuous of me to talk about my feelings at a time like this, and i'll be the first one to tell you that they are not nearly as strong as those of the people near to her. But i'm not offering them to be validated; i'm offering them because someone asked me to. One of you asked me to write about this, and it wasn't Dubious Dave, so i am doing so (after running the idea by Dave to make sure that it was oke with him, as the closest we have to family of the departed.)
It's oke to feel a sense of loss. It's oke to also feel that this was a stranger: she was both, someone dear to us through her unfortunately too brief time here, and someone whom we could not know as well as we wanted.
We all come here for something different. And we all know this. That's what a community- any community- really is. A place where everyone comes and has a role, whether it is to learn or to teach, comfort or be comforted, talk or listen. That's what community is. And in our community, more than most, we get to choose our roles and change them at need. She came here and was a part of our community, having a role, and having a place. Whether we others who gather here chose roles that brought us closer to her or not, we have neither failed her nor failed ourselves, and not everyone is going to be as moved by her passing. That's oke. That's how communities work. Some of you will be profoundly affected. Some of you will not. All of this is part of how this works.
So i offer this: Let this entry be, just as our lives here are, a community-chosen event. Participate as much or as little as you would like, read or comment, post JEs of your own, whatever. Let us gather, as we do in our everyday life here, and i offer this as our memorial service for Blue.
I will tell you what i knew of her.
I first met her through here, through Dave, through telephone and IM. She was a person who did things i can remember doing. I have been some of- certainly not all of- the places she has, and i wish that i could have given her some of whatever it was that got me out at least intact enough to crawl forwards. But i'm not sure what that was. Luck, mostly. It's left me questioning, all my life, because not everyone gets the tools that they need when they need them.
She went through a lot. A lot of suffering, a lot of struggle. And she really did fight hard. I view mental illness as i do any other illness: you get a vote, but it is absolutely not always a deciding vote. I don't think blue got the deciding vote in her illness. She chose how to die, and not being her, i can't tell you what went on in her head or in her life. I can only offer that i wish she had not hurt so much, and i know that a lot of you join me as i say: Blue I hope that You have finally reached a place where you can feel better.
We love you; we love you as we love each other, for the half/strangers, half/friends that any community is made of. We love most those whom we know most, but we knew you as much as you let us. And so we love you as much as we can for that.
It's oke that some of you live on the fringes, as blue sometimes chose to. It in no way means that you have less place. When you leave here, as some of you will, i hope that it is to pursue brighter places, other communities. That's how things go right. Blue didn't leave that way, and the only thing that i can think of to tell her, and us, and you, is that this still applies.
Where you are, May you be in a brighter place, in a community made somehow of what you need.
With that, i open the floor to the rest of you, to add any sentiments you have to offer, and to take away whatever it is that you need.
Re: (Score:2)
Look for it (Score:1)
Thank you sol (Score:2)
This is a very sad and I wish I could've helped somehow, but thanks for writing this JE. It made me realize how much I feel like my friends here are really friends and that a lot of people here know me better than a lot of my real life f
Re:Thank you sol (Score:2)
Sol, this was beautiful. thank you. thank you for saying, what i think, needed and should be said. we are all fortunate to have you. i know this wasn't easy to write today.
Re:Thank you sol (Score:1)
I regret to never have been in closer contact with her. I was a bit scared of all the problems..
JtS and I know another girl, Jessica, who also lives in the U.S., who has fought and created a better life for herself, after years with family abuse, and problems with justice, and depression.. Back then we talked for hours and hours on icq, and I think she is doing fine now, has a kid or 2, and a good man. So the outcome of these things are not set in stone. I realy regret not having been in closer contact
thinking (Score:1)
That's a better legacy than, say, the famed E. W. Dijkstra hoped for*, and time well spent by all concerned.
* "I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me."
-- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, computer wizard extraordinaire, 1930 - 2002.
Only knew her from her journals (Score:2)
Blue, we heard you, we cared for you, and we will miss you.
Re:Only knew her from her journals (Score:2)
Speaker for the dead (Score:2)
I read this, and it occurred to me that you've effectively become a speaker [hatrack.com]. Of all of us, you probably fit that role the best.