Wednesday, November 9, 2011

In Memorium

There is a very fine line between having your blog go dark for a day of mourning and not having the time to write anything anyway. It’s kind of like a lot of mid-20th-century art that way – it’s not so much the appearance of the thing as it is the intent behind it.

Last summer I was inducted into the UCF, a collective of bloggers and other folks online who share triumphs and tragedies, support, information, and no small amount of sarcasm, random digressions and the sort of friendly chops-busting that seems to have gone out of style in many places, alas. All I will say about it is that it is nice to find a corner of the internet that lives up the social networking hype that it was sold with way back when.

One of our members passed away over the weekend.

I had never met Wendy. I knew her as an icon, as words on a screen, and for that reason her passing probably hit the other members of the UCF rather harder than it did me. But she was welcoming to the new guy when I showed up, and she always had interesting things to say. And she passed the most important test of humanity that I know of – she was nice when she didn’t have to be and had nothing to gain by it.

And for that I will miss her.

As so many other UCFers have already said, fair winds and following seas, Wendy. The world is that much poorer for your absence.

2 comments:

Megan said...

This is exactly what I wanted to say but couldn't find the words. I'm new to the group, and it feels unseemly to pretend that I have suffered the same sort of loss the others have. It seems to diminish their grief, somehow. You've found the right balance. Thank you.

Fair winds and following seas, indeed.

David said...

It is a fine sort of line to walk. Thanks for the kind words.