Requiescat in Pace, Leigh Ann
Earlier this afternoon, I learned that a friend of mine, Leigh Ann Hussey, was killed last night in a motorcycle accident on Hwy 580. I am so very, very sad right now. Leigh Ann was an amazing and lovely person - full of life and energy, and funny and honest and courageous. I can hardly believe that she's gone.
I didn't know her nearly as well as I'd have liked to . . . we met through Geocaching - we'd corresponded about a few things over e-mail, and then met in person last summer at an event. Last winter, she and I and Connor went geocaching together a couple of times, and had some grand adventures, including a night cache where Connor dropped something and we had to go back hunting for it in the dark, and a very tricky puzzle cache which she and I solved together (although she did most of the hard stuff - some of it while sitting in the same chair I'm sitting in right now, come to think of it).
She was a genuinely interesting person with loads of enthusiasm and diverse interests - we talked about all sorts of things, and started some conversations I'd hoped to finish one of these days, but obviously now that won't happen. And there were so many things I didn't know about her at all - in reading things written by others who knew her today (she was motogrrl on LJ), I learned, for example, that she played the violin. I'd have loved to have heard her play. Losing her is so tragic. I can't help feeling she was far too young to be gone like this. But it does help me to remember that she lived her life fully and well, right up until the very end, it seems.
There will be a Mass for her on Saturday, and a Geocaching event on Sunday (a picnic which Leigh Ann herself had planned, but which will now surely become a memorial to her). I plan to attend one or both of these events, although right now I can't really think about any of that. I'm still in shock from the news. And so, so sad.
Goodbye, Leigh Ann. Connor and I will miss you.
I didn't know her nearly as well as I'd have liked to . . . we met through Geocaching - we'd corresponded about a few things over e-mail, and then met in person last summer at an event. Last winter, she and I and Connor went geocaching together a couple of times, and had some grand adventures, including a night cache where Connor dropped something and we had to go back hunting for it in the dark, and a very tricky puzzle cache which she and I solved together (although she did most of the hard stuff - some of it while sitting in the same chair I'm sitting in right now, come to think of it).
She was a genuinely interesting person with loads of enthusiasm and diverse interests - we talked about all sorts of things, and started some conversations I'd hoped to finish one of these days, but obviously now that won't happen. And there were so many things I didn't know about her at all - in reading things written by others who knew her today (she was motogrrl on LJ), I learned, for example, that she played the violin. I'd have loved to have heard her play. Losing her is so tragic. I can't help feeling she was far too young to be gone like this. But it does help me to remember that she lived her life fully and well, right up until the very end, it seems.
There will be a Mass for her on Saturday, and a Geocaching event on Sunday (a picnic which Leigh Ann herself had planned, but which will now surely become a memorial to her). I plan to attend one or both of these events, although right now I can't really think about any of that. I'm still in shock from the news. And so, so sad.
Goodbye, Leigh Ann. Connor and I will miss you.