From: steven@cray.com (Steven Levine)
Subject: A response to the Rob posts
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 20 Aug 92 11:29:29 CDT

My old friend Ann Mandi, over the past few months, has become 
an obsessive participant in some mailing lists -- baseball-related,
mostly, as she is a Mets fanatic to end all Mets fanatics.
She has started to meet some of her electronic correspondents,
and she and I have been carrying on a discussion about the
nature of electronic relationships.  I told her of the series
of postings about Rob, and how I felt they revealed a good
deal about newsgroup friendships and community.  I also
told her that they were the most sensitive and eloquent
series of eulogies I had ever seen, and offerred to send
them to her, which I later did.

In response she sent me the following, which, with
her permission, I post to soc.motss.  (I leave the formatting
as Ann presented it, because I think it conveys something
about her.)  I send this along because it strikes me as a
thank-you to the folks who wrote about Rob.

I thank you as well.

Steven Levine
steven@cray.com

-------------

Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 92 17:50:00 EDT
From: ann mandi <AMM@BROWNVM.brown.edu>
Subject:      Rob Bernardo
To: Steven J Levine <STEVEN>

Steven:

Thank you for sharing the letters about Rob Bernardo.  Wow.
I hope your fellow listmembers won't object to me, a stranger,
eavesdropping at the wake.

Yes, I was in tears.  Then they dried up.  Then they started
again.  And again.  How could it be otherwise?  I'm tremendously
moved by the depth of love for Rob, and among the list-family.

As one of the writers said, I wish I was more eloquent.  I
want to tell you how I feel, but I don't know how to express
it.  The only thing I can think to do is to reprise the words
that struck me the hardest.

There are so many:  His own postings; you're right, they
did give me a sense of him.  Your question, inserted towards
the end:  'Are you crying yet?', after a long, beautiful letter
from Jim Graham that in turn brought forth tears and dried them.
Something Mara Chibnik said: 'Remembering Rob is wonderful.  It's
when I realize _why_ I'm doing all this remembering that it aches.'
The poem by Edna St.Vincent Millay (whether or not Rob hated her).
The song 'The Dance'.  These words from Mark Morrissey's letter:
> I considered Rob a friend not met.
And
> Thank you Rob Bernardo for being there when I needed you, though you did
> not know.  A gift twice blessed.
(You know that hit home for me, after our recent discussions about
e-mail relationships.)  The misspelling of 'The Song/Sorrow of the
Earth'.  An exquisite description of grief from Jess Anderson,
which makes me wince but calls me to read it again and again:
> The cherry blossom is a symbol of the samurai, because
> unlike so many flowers, it does not wilt on the plant;
> rather, it reaches the peak of its bloom and drops off in
> full flower to die.  So here was a growing, vibrant person,
> reaching his peak, then like the samurai, dropping
> unexpectedly in full bloom.  What else could it be except
> unbearable?

I take from these eulogies the overriding impression that Rob made
everyone who knew him greater, and that the world has lost a truly
fine person.  But that in spite (or maybe because) of that loss,
his many friends, carrying his spirit, will multiply his strength
and bring it to even more people than he could reach on his own.
Jim Graham sums it up in his letter:
> So, now we will all share our memories and after we will all take that part
> of Rob that we were most familiar with and which we found the most beautiful
> and bring it to the people around us and he will live on.

I feel privileged that you brought him to me.

In tears,

ann