This is a little self-indulgent, but I've missed everyone and I really have not had time to post anything except the briefest of notes (teases, mostly) recently. I hope Jess and Emily don't mind.
Jess Anderson wrote: After a relatively brief illness associated with HIV, Rob Bernardo died four years ago today (the 13th). He was my particularly close friend, the first denizen of soc.motss I ever met face-to-face, following a year of very intense correspondence by email.
As it happens, at about the time Jess and Rob were becoming close friends I was getting to know Amanda Walker. I honestly don't remember whether she was the first denizen of soc.motss I ever met face-to-face, but it's likely. My relationship with her accounts for a lot of what drew me into the soc.motss community in the first place. That was the only social world we had in common.
Emily Rizzo writes: Thanks, Jess, for posting this. I was still in lurker mode on soc.motss when Rob was still posting -- I believe his last was some time in July -- but the outpouring of support prior to his death and the tributes afterward made me realize early on what a special place this can be.
I met Rob on the first trip that the Mongoose and I took together to San Francisco. We brought him black-and-white cookies (iced half and half) and he dove into them with a wonderful enthusiasm, laughing at himself the while. (That sounds a little messier than it was, but it wasn't neat.)
I was out of town when Rob died, and returned to an enormous volume of messages on my answering machine from the network of people who were making sure that his friends were kept apprised of what was happening. One of the people who showed up regularly on the tape, especially urgently at the end, after his passing, was Tovah Hollander. She wanted to ensure that I called her before logging in, because she thought that phone would be less bad than email or netnews as a way to hear. (After Tovah died, Max Vasilatos commented on Tovah's lovely voice -- warm, musical and mature. It was, bad news aside, a comforting voice, and it was characteristically generous of Tovah to put it to that service.)
I guess it's a sign of my own aging that I feel she died very soon after he did (not quite two years). I often think of the two of them together, and what Emily said recalls them both:
Emily again: I'm not sure I would have stuck with what appeared at first a jumble of flames, inside jokes and general mayhem if Rob's death hadn't intervened and suddenly made me realize the potential soc.motss had to offer. Unfortunately, a human life is a very high cost for such knowledge.
Tovah's term was "the warm, fuzzy underbelly of soc.motss." Emily, I'm sorry you didn't see this while you still knew Rob; he and Tovah were both very much part of that phenomenon for me.
I especially missed Tovah this spring, when my niece (the oldest of the next generation) was bat mizvah. I would have liked to talk to her about what it meant, and how I felt about it (since the synagogue my family attended was Orthodox, and didn't give girls that chance). But here's another thing: My sister and brother-in-law have been very active (as I never have been) in their temple, even at the expense of what I'd have considered more precious leisure time. In his sermon, the rabbi commented on the contribution they had made. Which reminds me again of soc.motss, and the community that I've been part of, and the contributions of all of those who make it worth the trouble.
Jess likes to point out that a path is made by walking on it. This
path -- of membership in the soc.motss community -- is one that I
want to keep clear enough that I can keep talking walks here, even
if it's only now and then.
