Dear Surelle, I am so very sorry for the recent loss of both your father and your mother-in-law. Please let me know if there's anything I might do that would be helpful.
Dear V.V., I don't have words. I've lost a parent but not a mother. Maybe there are words, but if so they are not mine. I'd intended to blog about a recent S-F convention I attended this past weekend (my con report: it was fun) but a member of the CoH community met here on Titan and I have subsequently become RL friends even after the shuttering of CoH and when I phoned to say hi, what have I missed this past weekend, what's new on Titan, well, she told me (my words now, not hers) that we'd lost yet another Super Hero, and I can tell you how that makes me feel. I know I rant and rave LOTS about the small stuff that annoys me. Somehow the more important it is, the less I am able to speak - when done with humor, my friends actually delight in making me speechless. And I won't bore you with the story about the bridge player and work colleague whose two words for me (after I'd prattled on sufficiently) was to whisper in my direction "Duct Tape!" - 'cause she'd already threatened over the bridge table once to duct tape my lips if I made one more awful pun! Anyhow, I don't have words to put any of this into perspective, much less to offer comfort. The very best I can hope to offer is a shoulder to cry on, some words of distraction, a reasonably clean handkerchief - oops! let me go get another clean handkerchief!! What I'd really like to do if I lived closer would be to bring over a homemade pie and a casserole and leave these in the kitchen for you and Larry along with all the other food stuffs for the various people in your home. Like i said, we both know there's absolutely nothing I can say, but despite this I would like to offer to you and to Surelle to keep you and yours, those currently walking the Earth as well as those recently departed, in my thoughts and prayers tonight and for the next several weeks after. I also plan on lighting a candle, not because I personally think that lighting a candle will make all that much difference, but rather it will make it easier to meditate and as one grandmother friends liked to remark, "Why not? It couldn't hurt."
All love to you, Mercedes Lackey and also Surelle; I pray in my own particular way and shall not bore you with the language of it. May the Higher Spirit look over each and both of you, your families, and as well as your recently (what I call) Dearly Departed, those loved ones whose souls are released from the pain of earthly bodies. Namaste.
