In memoriam - Christine Eldin

Dear Chris:

I didn't really know you very well. There were probably periods of time when we communicated daily, but in the way of bloggers and online acquaintances, I still didn't *know* you. Nonetheless, I always found your contributions and comments on other blogs thoughtful and entertaining. I knew you loved your children. I knew you were funny and prolific and talented and generous and supportive. It was always a pleasure interacting with you and reading your work. I admired you. You were a friend to so many bloggers/writers in our diverse yet somehow intimate community, and I felt you were a friend to me.

It is tragedy piled upon tragedy that so much of your blogging is gone, even though you had your (very important) reasons.

We lost touch around 2009, when I basically dropped off the face of the blogosphere (for personal reasons that were positive and beneficial but...). I regret not working to maintain contact. I regret letting you and so many others slip away, brushed aside by other priorities. I regret doing it so easily. I still thought of you often, wished you well. But wishing doesn't make it so.  

In your memory, I've made a donation to American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

And I think of Robert Frost's "For Once, Then Something." 

You will be missed. Whatever anguish and despair you suffered, I cannot truly know. But I remember you. And you mattered.

-Precie