My old friend Ann Mandi, over the past few months, has become an obsessive participant in some mailing lists -- baseball-related, mostly, as she is a Mets fanatic to end all Mets fanatics. She has started to meet some of her electronic correspondents, and she and I have been carrying on a discussion about the nature of electronic relationships. I told her of the series of postings about Rob, and how I felt they revealed a good deal about newsgroup friendships and community. I also told her that they were the most sensitive and eloquent series of eulogies I had ever seen, and offerred to send them to her, which I later did.
In response she sent me the following, which, with her permission, I post to soc.motss. (I leave the formatting as Ann presented it, because I think it conveys something about her.) I send this along because it strikes me as a thank-you to the folks who wrote about Rob.
I thank you as well.
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 17:50:00 EDT From: ann mandi <AMM@BROWNVM.brown.edu> Subject: Rob Bernardo To: Steven J Levine
Steven:
Thank you for sharing the letters about Rob Bernardo. Wow. I hope your fellow listmembers won't object to me, a stranger, eavesdropping at the wake.
Yes, I was in tears. Then they dried up. Then they started again. And again. How could it be otherwise? I'm tremendously moved by the depth of love for Rob, and among the list-family.
As one of the writers said, I wish I was more eloquent. I want to tell you how I feel, but I don't know how to express it. The only thing I can think to do is to reprise the words that struck me the hardest.
There are so many: His own postings; you're right, they did give me a sense of him. Your question, inserted towards the end: "Are you crying yet?", after a long, beautiful letter from Jim Graham that in turn brought forth tears and dried them. Something Mara Chibnik said: "Remembering Rob is wonderful. It's when I realize why I'm doing all this remembering that it aches." The poem by Edna St.Vincent Millay (whether or not Rob hated her). The song The Dance. These words from Mark Morrissey's letter:
I considered Rob a friend not met.
And
Thank you Rob Bernardo for being there when I needed you, though you did not know. A gift twice blessed.
(You know that hit home for me, after our recent discussions about e-mail relationships.) The misspelling of The Song/Sorrow of the Earth. An exquisite description of grief from Jess Anderson, which makes me wince but calls me to read it again and again:
The cherry blossom is a symbol of the samurai, because unlike so many flowers, it does not wilt on the plant; rather, it reaches the peak of its bloom and drops off in full flower to die. So here was a growing, vibrant person, reaching his peak, then like the samurai, dropping unexpectedly in full bloom. What else could it be except unbearable?
I take from these eulogies the overriding impression that Rob made everyone who knew him greater, and that the world has lost a truly fine person. But that in spite (or maybe because) of that loss, his many friends, carrying his spirit, will multiply his strength and bring it to even more people than he could reach on his own. Jim Graham sums it up in his letter:
So, now we will all share our memories and after we will all take that part of Rob that we were most familiar with and which we found the most beautiful and bring it to the people around us and he will live on.
I feel privileged that you brought him to me.
In tears,
ann
