It is with great sorrow that I post this message on this site, though a number of you were notified via email when I heard the news. I found out on Jan 7 that {BEL}Spammy, whose real name was Lisa Jennings, died of a gunshot wound in her home around 2AM Christmas morning. We have lost a great member of the clan, and I have lost my Very Bestest Friend in my life, a friend who I loved more than almost every other person I know.

Lisa and I regularly spoke via IM or email at least once a week, sometimes every day, and as I said, she had become my absolute Very Bestest Friend, and she said on several occasions that I was hers. We talked about everything from UT99, to work to our families, and had someone in each other to whom we could vent, find a sympathetic shoulder, you name it. Our friendship had grown to the point where it really could grow no longer without things getting romantic. But we were in our separate marriages, complete with their numerous problems, and she was staying in her marriage for her kids while I am getting ready to end mine. But, being a support tech at an ISP, I did not think too much about her not sending me an email in reply to my "Merry Christmas" wish I sent Christmas Day, nor that she was on IM... after all, new PCs and such, I figured she was getting buried in support requests, and add in time with her kids. And the week of New Years, with my message to her, I figured was not responded to for the same reason... But, I was starting to get concerned. Well, I was up in Fort Wayne that weekend, and when I got back, I decided to look at the news from the area where she lived, thinking perhaps weather or something like that which I had missed was an issue. And when I popped up to the web site for her company, I saw the notice that she had died Christmas day. A bit of further digging found her obituary, along with another news article, stating that she had died of a gunshot wound at 2am Christmas morning, and that the death was still under investigation (though I have my strong suspicions what happened). She left behind two daughters, 19 and just turned 16, along with a 12yo son, along with other family members.

This past week has been the most difficult of times for me. Being so close to one another (and the remote possibility that if, in the coming years we ever did both end up single, we could end up spending considerable time together), I have been very much deep in grief and mourning this week. I have grieved more over her tragic and untimely loss than I have for anyone else I have ever known (most of Sunday through Tuesday was spent crying my heart out). And I will for some time. As I told her about a month ago... the mold broke when she was created, as it could not make something so near perfection again, and could not tolerate making anything less perfect. Yes, I am sure she had her faults, but you don't find someone like her often. And to find someone like her as a friend... you are very lucky if you have one person like her as a friend in your lifetime.

I never got to hear her voice or meet her in person. I always dreamed to do so. And had we ever ended up single, I had planned to spoil her as much as I could, to make up for what she never really had for most of her marriage... someone who cared for her, and what she loved. But, it seems I will never have that chance. And I am much poorer for that fact.

So please keep her and her children in your prayers and thoughts.