I felt a loss

Bea Sheftel, a 64 year old woman died this week. I hadn’t even met her, yet I cried and felt numb with grief.

How could the death of someone living in America whom I had never set eyes on cause me to feel so upset?

Bea belonged to the same online writer’s group as myself: Momwriters. A list of over one thousand writers who are mothers. I had known Bea from the list for about four years. She was a larger than life character whose posts seemed to both amuse and irritate some. Yet to me, her posts were always worth a read. They inspired, they taught, they made me think about things. Once I wrote to her tell her how I loved to read her posts and even typed her name into a search engine to seek out her online articles and stories. She was chuffed by that. She told me it meant a lot to her and she was going to save my e-mail.

A few weeks back, Bea posted to the group to ask us to pray for her. She felt dreadful. I wrote back to her to say she would be in my thoughts and prayers, but I never heard back from her.

Then not long afterwards Bea's husband appealed to the group to pray for his wife and later on her son informed us that she had heart problems. Yet despite this, I still thought that Bea would be back online soon posting to tell us how much better she was. But it was not to be as one day we were informed by the list owner that Bea had died.

The amount of posts about her death are a testiment to how loved Bea was. Here is a tribute I posted on the day of her funeral:

"Last of the Summer Wine"

Bea you were:
Rich, refreshing, mature.
A writer by passion,
Generous by nature.
Wise beyond belief,
Caring with compassion.

We remember you.

Bea you enjoyed:
Living life with Zest
Giving Hope to others,
Reaching out with Loving arms.
Loving was what you did best,
Mother of all mothers.

We remember you.

Summer wine brought:
Laughter, Light and Love,
Inspiration, Hope and Joy.
We raise our glasses
For one more toast to
Bea, the last of the summer wine.

We remember you, always.