Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 11:32:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The loss of Lisa


This note to inform those of you who need to know that I know of
Lisa's death.  I discovered this news as the rest of you did, by
reading the announcement forwarded by Malgosia.  When I read her
post at 9:30 last night, I was stunned with disbelief.  I still
have not emerged from my shock for this event to register with
full emotional impact.  Without resorting to alcohol as poor Jerry
did, I was nonetheless up all night with insomnia and nausea.

When I regain my composure, I will attempt to write my own
statement for the list.  For now I will only address two points of
interest.   I cannot remember the last time she told me about any
immediate medical problems; if I do remember, I will let you know.
The only thing I can think of right now is that Lisa did have a
disease which was potentially fatal, it may have been Addison's
Disease.  It was responsible for her heavily freckled, dark
patches of skin, which were rather noticeable on a person of
Anglo-Saxon stock.  She may have mentioned some current medical
problem a few months back, but she did not give any indication of
any immediate life-threatening situation, or at least I cannot
remember such now.  In addition to the other dimensions of this
loss, please note that she just passed another birthday on 25
August, which made her only 35 years old.  She had her entire life
and career ahead of her.  Not only was she working on a PhD in her
field of evolutionary biology, but she was intellectually
insatiable in many directions.

Another point: I know how totally dedicated she was to these
marxism lists.  She was obsessed with making them work.  She would
stay up through the wee hours online every night, depriving
herself of sleep.  She would talk to me endlessly about the
marxism lists, even past my own point of endurance.  With that in
mind, I hope that spoons will be assiduous in seeing to it that
her that her work continues and that the new marxism lists are a
success.  At some point we should consider an appropriate
memorial.

Several people on these lists knew Lisa personally, some offline
as well as online.  For us this news is too terrible to bear.  No
one on this list was closer to Lisa than I was.  That did not
prevent us from engaging in intellectual and personal disputes.
There is an old adage, whose advice is sound but which we never
follow: that you should remind your loved ones of how you feel
about them, for you never know when the last words you leave them
with may indeed be the very last.  Now I have to live with this
sad realization, and can only speculate what Lisa was last
thinking about our friendship before she left this world.  This
only compounds the horror of the situation.

There is nothing else I can say now.


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