(no subject)

[geminigirl]

So, tanseytoes passed away over the weekend. I'm feeling like I should write something about it, but I'm not sure what.

She was someone who had a presence in my life, although I tried to keep my emotional distance from her. I'd seen and heard how she hurt some people who I really care about, and so it was hard to consider putting myself into that situation. And yet, she also had moments of kindness...she helped melebeth move. It was a foo she organized that introduced me to many of the people I'm friends with now. On a trip to Boston, for Arisia she was the one who introduced me to fairion. When I'd just moved down here, a few weeks before Christmas, she was the one who called me and said that I should spend Christmas Eve with her.


And yet, in extending the invitation for Christmas Eve, in talking about that, I can't forget how she got drunk and passed out on the couch, shortly after we started watching the movies we had rented. I can't forget how I thought twice about leaving her there, because I'm disinclined to leave drunk people alone, having seen some of the results.

I'm not saying that she was a bad person. She was a person who was ill, and who needed help and no matter what anyone tried, or did, or said, she didn't get it, couldn't get it, I suppose just never got to a place where she felt ready for it. And now she won't have the chance to do that. Or anything.

I hope she's at peace, and that the demons that haunted her are put to rest. I hope that those who were hurt by her can find forgiveness. I hope that there is never another time in my life where my friends are hurt while I watch and can't do anything.

Comments

[rdhdsnippet.livejournal.com]

You captured her better than I could. Thank you.

[geminigirl]

You're welcome.

I wrote it, as I saw it, and wondered if it sounded mean. It felt uncomfortable to write, but I think that sort of was the way I always felt around Shannon...uncomfortable. Never quite knowing for sure if she was sober, how sober she might be, what she might do.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Many hugs... I am sorry.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. I didn't know her well enough to know about these kinds of problems, and I had gotten the impression there was some sort of backstory to which I was not privy. I've often noticed this sort of canonization effect when people die, where suddenly no one says anything but good things about them, and it annoys me.

I'm sorry

[maxdwolf.livejournal.com]

Ever read Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead?"

[chrisv.livejournal.com]

*big hug* Thanks, hon.