Another Great Lady Gone: Andante

Through Rooks Rant I just found out that Andante of Collective Sigh lost her struggle with cancer, a few days ago, on the 16th.

I had been worried that something had happened, because she hadn't posted anything for a month and a half. There had been other long gaps between her always interesting messages during her illness of a year or more, but that absence seemed way too long.

I didn't communicate with Andante often, yet she caused me to feel close enough, and one reason was that in a certain sense she lived right down the road from here, except in the next state south, North Carolina. Her weblog was one of the six or seven that I checked nearly every day.

This is pain. She was such a resourceful and determined lady, and there was no doubt in my mind that she would overcome the cancer and keep on bopping along for many more years. But such was not to be.

This is also the second time that something like this has happened in my online life. Ten or fifteen years ago another great lady up in New York state that I was much closer to and who also was attacked by cancer likewise left here for good, and though I never laid eyes on her or saw a picture of her or talked to her on the phone, I haven't gotten over it yet

Such people, even if you didn't really know them well, stick with us to some extent long after they're gone.