Date Posted:16:56:08 07/04/10 Sun Author:Page Subject: Losing a friend >>>>> In reply to:
Debi
's message, "It's that time again..." on 08:09:21 06/26/10 Sat
One of the hardest parts of life is losing the people you love. Like most people I’ve lost my grandparents, both my parents, and dear friends. And every time it hurt so bad I wondered just how I would ever recover from the loss. This week I discovered that sometimes it hurts just as much to lose someone you never met.
I never met Jeanie Rooney face-to-face, only on the Ladies of Lallybroch boards. I’d been a part of the Lallybroch community for some time before Jeanie started posting, but she very quickly became one of my favorite people. At the time, she and I were both employed at radio stations and we had a ball commiserating with each other about some of the more exasperating parts of our jobs. In fact, it was Jeanie who christened the two of us The Radio Babes, and I was always thrilled to see one of her posts.
Jeanie had a side-splitting sense of humor, and the things she’d post frequently left me (and the rest of Lallybroch) rolling on the floor with laughter. Quite often I’d receive emails from her containing photos of Jimmy Page she’d run across on the web, just because she knew they’d send me into paroxysms of delight. Even after she left the radio job in Florida, she and I were still The Radio Babes.
When I learned this week she’d suddenly passed away in her sleep it left me devastated. It also left me wondering how I could be so torn up when Jeanie and I never met. But I’ve finally calmed down enough to realize that we didn’t have to know each other face-to-face to be friends, because that’s what we were – friends.
With that knowledge comes the realization of how lucky I am to live in this time where I can have friends all over the world, even though we may never sit down together for a cuppa. Whether they’re in Florida or Massachusetts or Canada or Washington or Brazil or Scotland or California or England or Texas, they (you) are my friends. The loss of Jeanie has also made me realize how important these friendships are to me and how important it is to keep in touch and not let them fade. And so I swear to do better.
Jeanie would be pleased about that. And I’m sure she’d tell me so with words that would have me giggling through my tears.
While I’ll miss my funny friend who was taken much, much too soon, I’m so very glad she was part of my life.
In the past year I've lost friends I met online. One I met in Real Life, as she was a part of the entourage that went to Scotland over ten years ago, another I met face to face once in Scotland, one I never met but was always entertained by her posts. All of them I met through Highlander fandom. They all made an impression on my life and they will all be missed. Thank you, Page, for reminding me how precious the gift of friendship is.
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Thanks, Debi! Jeanie's death really hit me hard, especially coming so soon after Blackdog's. Your HW prompt gave me a way to express how much she'd touched my life! -- Page, 20:22:27 07/09/10 Fri
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