BlogHer - The Hidden Side of a Leaf: Remembering Dewey - Comments

Thanks for this post

dampscribbler — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:50:55 -0600

I'm remembering Dewey this week, so many tragedies seem to be striking families these days, and I find myself concerned for them and hoping that Dewey's husband and child (son, I think?) are doing okay as they approach this sad anniversary. I looked for her blog today (it had been up for some months) to try to communicate my sympathies but alas, it's gone now. I'll just be saying a prayer for them, hoping they have some comfort.

a real tribute to a virtual friend

grannysu — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:54:11 -0600

Granny Sue Stories from the Mountains and Beyond www.grannysu.blogspot.com susannaholstein@yahoo.com

You and the other book bloggers you listed have honored your friend and created a memorial to her.

I agree with youn that online friends can be very close even if we never meet face to face. I have many such friends in the storytelling world, from New Zealand to Vancouver to Singapore. And when we lose one, the pain is very real. In August 2007, an online friend passed away. I'd had the pleasure of not only meeting in person but even staying at her home while performing at a festival. I still grieve for her, yet I would never have met her had it not been for our online meeting. Her birthday is next week and once again I will remember her on my blog. A true friend, very much missed.

I was so sad when I opened

Melissa Ford — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:22:58 -0600

I was so sad when I opened her blog today, expecting to read something about a book she had found over the weekend and read the post left by her husband. I spent some time looking at old emails from her and thinking about how little we know about another person, even when they share parts of their life online.

She will be missed.

Venting about infertility since 2006
www.stirrup-queens.blogspot.com
and we're not talkin' cowgirls...

The Hidden Side of a Leaf: Remembering Dewey

sassymonkey — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:00:58 -0600

"Birth, life, and death -- each took place on the hidden side of a leaf." - Toni Morrison. Those are the words that greet you when you visit Dewey's blog. I expected many things when I got up this morning. I expected snow. I expected a pile of spam in my in-box had I hadn't checked my email for days. I expected the bus to be crowded. I expected my feed reader to frighten me as I also hadn't checked it for days. I was right about all of those things. I did not expect that when I was checking the accumulated feeds in my reader that I'd find out that one of my favourite book bloggers, Dewey, had passed away last week. I've written about Dewey often. She and her blog, The Hidden Side of a Leaf were at the center of many wonderful things in the book blogging community. We didn't know each other. We were blogging acquaintances as best, similar to the neighbour that you don't know but nod and smile at when you see them on the street or at the grocery store and you never expect them not to be there. My heart is sad today.

Dewey's energy and organizational skills were well known across the book blogging community. She's the one that created the Weekly Geeks meme. She organized the Bookworm Carnival and the 24 Hour Readathon. She had planned to do more than a month of giveaways this holiday season and that was the subject of her last post - the giving season.

There were occasional references to an illness but I don't think that anyone knew the extent of it until this morning when Dewey's husband posted of her passing. Dewey not only maintained an active blog that was an inspiration to many of us but she did so while she was ill and in a lot of pain.

Just this pass weekend my boyfriend and I were commenting on the impact of online communities and friendships. Every time we go to a new city we meet up with people that I know online, many that I haven't met before and I've only met the teeniest, tiniest fraction of the people that I interact with online. Like many bloggers I did not meet Dewey, but that doesn't lessen the pain of her passing for me or for them. We do not need to meet or interact with people in a "conventional" way for them to impact our lives. I think Andi at Tripping Toward Lucidity said it so well for us.

I just found out as her husband posted about it today, and I'm terribly sad, shocked, confused, and more than anything else, I can feel a big void in the tight knit online world that we maintain. I've thought about it often, how people we may never meet become such a tangible part of everyday life. As odd as it might sound to the outsider, it's true. We share our lives, our loves, our losses, and we matter to each other. This community matters.

Today the book blogger community is remembering Dewey.
Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading? - We Love You Dewey
At Home With Books - In Honor of Dewey
My Friend Amy - When You Lose a Blogging Friend, Farewell Dewey
Books of Mee - Bye Dewey
In Search of Giants - In Memory of Dewey
Maw Books Blog - In Which We Say Goodbye To One Of Our Own
Caribousmom - A Loss Beyond Words
Ex Libris - Dewey
Stephanie's Book Blog - A Terrible Loss
Everyday Reads - Prayerful
Things Mean A Lot - Dewey
The Kea - The Kea
Thoughts of Joy - Extremely Sad News
Out of the Blue - Dewey

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.