Remembering A Friend
Today is the sixth blogiversary™ of Andante’s blog, Collective Sigh. She started it to express her views on politics and life, because there was a definite lack of an audience for such views in the area of North Carolina she lived in.
If you look at her avatar at the top of my right sidebar, you will see references to two of her many facets. Her father’s people were from Scandinavia, and she was a classically trained soprano.
We connected for a number of reasons, initially because we were liberals living in wingnut wastelands, but most importantly because we were both “army brats”. Being a “military dependent” is a way of growing up that is unique. Among the group, it is almost the same as going to the same high school, even though the buildings might be thousands of miles apart and you have never met before.
In a post in February of 2005 about the funeral for a sister-in-law, Random funerary musings, Andante included this poem:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!Mary Frye (1932)
As long as one person remembers that you lived, you can’t really die.
7 comments
Indeed. 🙂
Nice post Bryan, and worthy. I regret I never had the chance to meet her and only got to know her a little here in cyberspace. But what I did see, I liked. She gave a damn, and she tried to make things right however she could. And that’s far more than most.
It’s at times like this, when someone truly worthwhile passes on, that I do hope there is some kind of afterlife for such as these, and they are finally, and truly, at peace.
It was primarily because of Andante that I started posting Recipe’s. 🙂 Something that, anyone who knows me can attest, I never do for certain (mostly historical) reasons. 🙂
Rest in Peace, Blogmother.
i was just thinking of her a few days ago, but for slightly more frivolous reasons, having seen a loldog or other cute picture of what surely must have been a cousin of one of her chihuahuas, thinking andante really ought to see this one!
A deeply moving tribute, Bryan. Andante was one of those rare human beings who bring out the best in everyone. I am truly sorry for your loss.
.-= last blog ..Princess Ida =-.
What a wonderful post of rememberance.
.-= last blog ..Happy 40 Years, Sesame Street! =-.
Thanks for remembering Bryan. Andante was a very special person and I was glad to have known her through her writings and the occasional comment at my place. I still keep the link to her blog on my site just so I am occasionally reminded of her.
.-= last blog ..Remember the Fifth =-.
I’ve never heard that poem before, but how lovely and appropriate.
The blogsphere is a little less without her.
.-= last blog ..The apocalypse, starring Adam Lambert =-.
Thanks to one and all for your thoughts and comments. She is the real reason this place exists which is why I refer to her as Blogmother.