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[arebella]

It's been a long time since I posted anything here and it seems like the only time I do, it's bad news.  I just learned today that Karesia (Kim Waldstreicher) passed away in late January.  I know many of you knew her well from the Hercules/Xena fandom, and from the many lists that those fandoms spawned.  She was a co-founder with me of the Altar of

Comments

Such sad news

[sahbra]

I didn't know Kim as well as I'd have liked, although we "worked" together on at least one story. I'm so sorry to hear this news and I wish I'd known her better. My sympathy goes out to her family, you and all the others who were blessed to have had Kim in their lives!

Thanks, Bella, for letting all of us know.

[valeriejoy]

Alas. :(

Such sad news but thank you for letting us know....

[arebella]

You're both very welcome. I hadn't talked to her in a while, although I knew she was having more health issues in the last couple of years. I thought I would touch base with her a while back and had tried emailing her a few times with no response. I started getting a very bad feeling about it because that wasn't like her. Then I got an email from someone who knew her from the Buffy fandom who was also on the Altar list for a while, and had heard that she passed away. I couldn't find any obituary or any info on the web, so I emailed Liz, her roomie. Liz confirmed that Kim passed back in late January from health related complications, although she said had been doing better lately and it was a surprise. She told me to go ahead and let people who knew Kim know.

[mcjude]

I've had a similar situation with my on-line friends. Early in the internet I belonged to a "chat group" with no particular connection except that we had the same ISP. We became very close and several members died during the 1990's. Then I started to play bridge. I had at least three partners die (one very suddenly, although he was sick, and two others that I didn't hear about for a long time.) Now I am on facebook and have had two facebook friends die since December.

The strange thing about Facebook however, is that I have reconnected with many of those friends from the 1990's and am now a very good friend with the wife of one of my dead bridge partners. Odd how the internet works.

[arebella]

Yes, I have several very dear friends that I rarely if ever see in person, but feel just as close to as those who live close and I see all the time. I hadn't talked to Karesia for a while, but that wasn't all that unusual. This time was very different since when I emailed her, both on Facebook and at another email address, she didn't respond. I think I already knew something bad had happened to her before I emailed her roomie and had it confirmed. I keep thinking that we should have a cyber memorial service for her since she had so many internet friends.