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Sunday, September 25, 2011

Goodbye, Dear Friend

One of the most loved and prolific bloggers in "our world" passed away on August 20th.  

It was about one month later that the blogging world discovered the news.  Melissa's last post was about a month and a half prior to her death and many of her on-line friends were very concerned, fearing the worst.  If you visit that post, be sure to read the loving comments which were left following Melissa's passing.

Several bloggers shared some beautiful thoughts of Melissa.  Below are a few of them, with links to their posts:
 




Coline, one of Melissa's closest and dearest on-line friends offered to write a memorial for T-Central.  Please relax for a moment and take the time to read it.

 - Calie



It was just over two years ago that I first commented on “Melissa’s Meanderings” which had been going a scant month. We gelled immediately and so started a long series of regular emails on a scale dwarfing all other online communications. We contemplated online chatting and even started to set it up but Melissa decided that long emails was her preferred medium
We were little different in age though we had been born on different continents. Clearly we had both known our true natures from an early age and learned quickly to subdue it, both of us had sought help at about twenty and got little help. Melissa had the diagnosis but could see no way in her circumstances to find a way to transition. She did try entering into relationships but realised that her expectations could not gel with the hopes and expectations of the girls she found. Like many of her generation she lived through the era of Vietnam and with a military father found resistance futile, I had wondered if exposure to that Vietnamese sun finally killed her…
She chose a solitary life living out in the country head down in a solid company to pay for an early retirement to be herself, thank goodness for her and for us that she did.
She had hardly started a blog when I first found her and we were instant soul mates. She encouraged me to start using an epilator and by degrees I encouraged her to restart going further out in the real world and she joined a support group and found some live friends again.
If she had a fault it was her ability to get to a new post first and then post one of her perfectly formed comments leaving the rest of us speechless! 
Latterly she started to find the present darker mood of our corner of the net depressing and encountered some direct hostility and hinted that this may have delayed admitting that her health had deteriorated. Few among us have not wished fate to take a hand and to not wake the next day when it all felt too much…
Her spirit burned fierce and bright though sadly not for long enough. I had expected us to age gracefully together, her more gracefully than me, but is was not to be. The consolation is that she suffers in this mad world no longer.
There is a large void and silence which is hard to come to terms with...

2 comments:

  1. Well said.

    The only honest consolation in her passing is that she suffers in this confused world no longer.

    She will be sorely missed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I miss your comments from the Piedmont Soooo... much! I believe, after reading all that you've wrote that you where at your happiest, the last few years (too short of a time). I think you showed us some of the most sweet pretty photos, herein. I miss your happy coversations. Rest in Peace, knowing you touched many hearts!! Love, Karen

    ReplyDelete

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