June 9, 1957 - August 26, 2007

Yesterday, I heard of the passing of Diana, a friend of mine in the States, due to a kidney infection following her cancer treatment. I got to know her through an internet writing group she co-founded, and I'll be forever grateful that I knew her, even for a comparatively short time, and largely only over the internet... She was a fine person, and will be missed by many.

She was, in many ways, a great inspiration to me, helping and encouraging me with my writing, and forever exalting me to "go, do, BE!". She was also, it has to be said, one of the few people in my life who actually gave me things to think about... though she did temper that by regularly pointing out that I tend to think too much ;)

With this in mind, I've changed my mind about the whole work website stuff. I've been slowly becoming a workaholic over the last couple of years, and I know that the last thing Diana would have wanted for me would be that I waste my weekends on work. There's so much else I could accomplish with that time, and I've put so much of it off for far too long. I could be sketching, I could be writing, I could be photographing things, I could be doing touristy crap around town... in short, I could be living... and I'm damned if I'll work for my employers seven days a week, however much they're offering they're offering to pay me, however much they're willing to subsidise my further training, and however much the money and the experience might be useful. If I wasn't so damned lazy, I'd have taught myself loads more HTML, Java and CSS by now... and if my employers need someone tech-savvy to service the websites more than I already do, and to fix the problems caused by next-to-useless Editors, they can stump up the cash and hire someone with the skills and experience, as I've recommended all along. I already have enough of a job, five days a week, and with enough overtime to eat into my free time.

Still, in many ways, Diana's death doesn't seem real to me... and posting all this isn't really going to change that. Next time something really cool happens in my life, I'm going to think to myself "I have to email Diana about that..." and then I'll probably start crying.

She'd recently set up in a new home in New Mexico, finally settling after several years plagued with upheavals. I always figured I'd meet up with her one of these days... We'd spoken on the phone once, but that was the closest we'd got to really talking, though we'd clocked up many hours of internet chat and hundreds of emails between us. I've been to the States several times already, and we'd discussed - in very broad, vague terms - the possibility of arranging a meet for all the members of her writing group.

That's not going to happen now... and the feelings I have flitter between the ache of missing her already, and a weird twinge reminding me that, while she may be gone, I still remember her... as will those family and friends who survive her. We will continue to remember her and, in that way, she will live on in all of us.

Somewhat selfishly, I'm also rather angry that she's gone, while my two grandmothers - who have been 'fading fast' for bloody years - are still alive and well, considering their age. How can that be right? It's not that I wish my grandmothers dead, just that Diana was too young to die... She should have had many more years of life to enjoy.

And now I have to figure out where/what/who I want to 'go, do, be'...