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The event we'd been anticipating has come and gone and our beloved Brenda Balin, she who sent me the fountain pen, she who was a fellow traveller from the days of the Harlan Ellison Art Deco Dining Pavilion (a/k/a "The Pavvy") is no longer with us.
The sarcoma which was diagnosed as imminently terminal after a visit the emergency room a mere two months ago did its unrelenting job, more or less on-schedule, maybe plus a little.
Yesterday, as I got my game face on for the morning, I did what I've done most days these last two months on Facebook, since we learnt. Brenda's son, Eli, posted it.
In answer, I wrote the following:
Vita brevis, ars longa.
At 5:45 AM today, Brenda Balin, born of New York and late of Waukegan Illinois, passed away at age 70 in hospice near Chicago, Illinois. She was my friend.
I will so very much miss her. We had a saying,her and I, that we shared between us, which I think is expressed in the Latin alphabet as L'Shana Haba'ah b'Portland ... "Next year in Portland", a turn on the closing of the service on Yom Kippur (as she told me), the wish to meet "Next Year in Jerusalem". It was her wish to eventually come out west and see us in person, something wished of the both of use over the decade of acquaintance, and a thing devoutly wished between us.
Sometime during the last couple of years old Moe Mentum reversed his swing imperceptibly, and there came a sense that that goal was receding faster than we could catch it, so we basked in each others' company online. She was one of the people I met in the Art Deco Dining Pavilion on HarlanEllison dot com, and it's a constant sense of amazement and pleasure to me that I still see a number of these friends online, and those online acquaintances ... and you know who you are ... are as solid, or even more so, than some people i know in real life. Harlan Ellison brought potential into lives. So did Brenda.
Just by living her life as she did she brought me so much as a friend. And now that supply is gone, and I wlll have to take what she gave me and nurture it as I penetrate deeper into middle age. She encouraged my writing and art, 'twas one on the people around me who see more potential in me than I see in myself, and one of the last things she said to me about that was 'put yourself out there'.
My condolences to her son, Eli, and her family, that they may mourn this loss, and to myself, now that I won't see her online responding to my profundity any longer. And my admiration to the decision not to leave her online presence up: one full of wisdom and a touch of bravery that shouldn't be uncommon in this time, but kind of is.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
בשנה הבאה בפורטלנד
That last part there, the Hebrew ... that was a sentiment between us that I'll miss greatly. My transliteration is undoubtedly errant, inferred as it was from what I could find, and I'm no Hebrew speaker
Brenda did always want to come out here. I got the idea she thought of Portland as one of the last good places left in America (current events withstanding or no). And she wanted to come out here and see the mountain. Wy'east. Mount Hood. She seemed to regard it as one of the most beautiful of things (you don't need to convince me) and wanted the chance to see it in person.
A chance that'll never be, alas.
We talked a few times on the phone. That wonderful east-coast accent; I could tell it came from New York. A little cawfee tawk.
And with the knowledge that I'll never again see a ready response to some of my online profundity, that her updates and comments will never again appear, I think I can be forgiven if I get a little ... well, verklempt. Or maybe a lot.
As the Tralfamadorians say:
So it goes.
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