So, many years ago I ran a mailing list. I’m still friends with / in contact with quite a few people from it. Indeed, several of my closest friends came about through that list.
But there were tens of people on it (it was a small list) that I’d lost contact with. Years ago I mailed a friend – and got a bounce message – she worked at ARM when I knew her and I just assumed that she’d moved on and that mailing address had gone. I was saying that I’d be over in Cambridge and if she wanted to meet up that’d be cool. It had long ago reached the level of friendship of people who’ve little in common anymore but who knew each other and could probably manage a reminiscing over coffee happily.
And today, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I decided to just search for her name.
It’s an uncommon name.
Kneebone.
And up popped google with the answer – a just giving page. She died. Probably before I e-mailed her back then. I knew she had some cardiac issues – or at least had some vague notion (back then I probably knew more, but it was one of those vaguely lurking in my head issues), but it wasn’t something we’d deeply discussed.
I don’t really know what to say about it all. It has, unsurprisingly, left me feeling somewhat sad. It doesn’t achieve anything, but I’ve donated some money to the cause chosen by the company at which she worked – which was probably a cause she’d support. Really, what I want to do is gather all my friends around and let them all know how fucking awesome they all are.
