When A Friend You've Known For Decades Passes Away...Shauna Will Be Missed

 The social medial world has many sides. On the one hand, we can send and receive messages allowing us to keep in touch with thousands--even millions of people instantaneously. We can even do live video conferencing and chats keeping us informed and "up to speed."

On the other hand, with so many people so accessible, people can sort of drift away. There's no way you can keep all those people always in your life. So, in a way, there are more people, and theoretically, they should be closer, but they're not.

A friend of mine passed away in December of last year. I found out Friday. I've known Shauna for probably forty years. She married into a family I've known even longer, a family that I've been associated with still, a family that has played an important part of my life.

Around 1990 I heard that Shauna and her husband were moving out of the country for her husband's job. She wondered if I wanted to find a few roommates and rent out her home in the Sunnyside area of Salt Lake. It was a couple of blocks from the University of Utah. I loved living there. It became a place for my friends and fraternity brothers to hang out. It was where I was living when I met my wife. Shauna and her husband didn't have to rent out there house, but I'm glad they did.

Years later, with her living half a world away, she wanted to buy my books. That's the ultimate compliment of any writer to have someone request a book they've written. Shauna followed me on social media and commented on many of my photos and blog posts.

Shauna lived in Egypt when my wife and I got married. For a wedding gift, she gave us a personalized plaque. On the plaque is our name in English, Egyptian, and Arabic (at least, I think those are the languages...). We put it up in the two houses we've called home. 

I found out she's been gone for months. Even though I haven't seen her in person for many many years, it still hit hard. I'll miss her comments, her quirky sense of humor, her funny stories. Like I said earlier, relationships continued via social media have a good side. I'm glad I kept in touch, even though it was infrequent. She'll be missed.

Goodnight Diane...Sleep Well

As we hurried about to prepare for Christmas, a quiet Facebook notice showed up in my announcements. It was from a cast member from a show I did in 2015. The show was Harvey and there were eleven of us that shared the stage. On Sunday, one of us passed away.

Over the years I've been involved in several theatrical productions. Even if you work with the same people, each show is different--each cast its own personality. You work toward a goal of making the best show possible for the patrons and for yourself. And by doing so, you make strong friendships that last forever, because you worked, you sacrificed, you endured something together. When bad news hits, the memories of that shared experience return, and it becomes closing night, and you miss them all over again.

Diane Robbins was in the cast of Harvey. She and I had probably the least amount of stage time, but it didn't matter. Diane was a lovely person on stage and off. She always had a smile and for the life of me, I can't remember her saying anything that wasn't positive. Within days of the show closing at the beginning of July, 2015 Diane was in the hospital and the news was not good. Because the show had ended, we no longer saw each other, could no longer encourage and uplift each other in person. That was the hardest part. We received a notice in December 2015 that Diane was in remission--the best news possible.

In the three and a half years since, Diane many times commented on posts or pictures of mine. The last time I saw her was after a show I did this past summer. It was great to see her and give her a hug. On Sunday, we were given the news that she had passed away. The last thing she posted on Facebook was a simple meme, perhaps the most famous words ever written by Charles Dickens. "God bless us, everyone!" How appropriate.

I didn't know Diane as well as others, but I felt a emptiness when I heard the news. Tears have been shed and many more will fall because of her wonderful spirit. Goodnight Diane...the curtain has fallen for the last time and the world's a darker place. Sleep well.