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I haven't been on my regular chat boards lately and I just found out a person who I only knew online, passed away from cancer. This is the first time I have to deal with an internet death and it is a very unsettling experience.
I only knew her from her words and now her words are gone. She brought such life and warmth to the 'cold' computer monitor and now the community in which she shared her soul is mourning. It's hard enough to face death when you know the person in the flesh, but I never even thought about what would happen if someone from my internet life passed away. It really is a loss but at the same time, the community gained so much from her presence because she decided to turn on her computer and share her thoughts with an 'untouchable' community.
Never doubt how some 'typed' words sent into cyberspace can make a difference and change the lives of many. To all the special friends I have met on this board, I thank you for all you have shown me and all that we will share in the future. You have opened up your worlds and I thank you for revealing things from your life so that I can learn something new and see things from a different perspective.
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R.I.P Caz, you played out your cards well.
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Found this in one of the threads posted about Caz, and thought it was beautiful.
What is Dying?
I am standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze, and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "She is gone."
Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. Her diminished size is in me, not her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone", there are, on a far distant shore, other eyes welcoming her arrival and other voices taking up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"- and that is dying.
The Rev. Canon Wilberforce
St. John the Divine,
Westminster