Memoriam for AJ

Dear Bloggers,

I began blogging because I am interested in technology and publication. I am a manager of a publications department and was scheduled to do a workshop on using the tools of the 21st century for communication in the classroom. So I began my blog. And I began reading blogs. Meanwhile, I heard about AJ. He is the son of a friend of a friend. He had cancer and the prognosis was not good. And he was posting to a blog called Care Pages.

So I began to read this blog, a phenomenal account of strength and love, the fortitude of a family in faith dealing with the worst fortune. The whole family got involved with the posting especially as AJ got weaker and could not always record the account of the day or event himself.

AJ continued living fully every day and continued
his faith journey with authenticity and with energy for doing good. And he continued his adventures, visiting an aquarium when he was no longer able to pursue more exotic interests like parasailing. Even in his last days, he initiated a partially blog-driven campaign to raise money for the hospital that served his needs during his treatment. The last day of his life it was announced that the fund had reached a milestone of $50,000.

We blogreaders knew that today's post was inevitable and that it would not be written by AJ, this strong friend who had come alive to us on the pages of a blog, and who had, through it, encouraged us to a fuller kind of living. AJ's Dad said,
"We felt sorrow, pain, relief, joy, doubt, amazement, comfort, calm, anxiety, anguish, mercy, and other emotions that words can't describe just yet. So, I come to my familar place and time to share with all of you. I am not sure how long I will need to do this."

Publication is a communication, a public form of communication. Blogging allows us to publish. AJ's life deserved to be published, for he was a fine young man and gave beautifully to his family, friends, and those around him. I'm glad he published that spirit to those of us in the etherworld also. We, too, have benefited from knowing him.

Blogging, I'm sure, met a particular need for AJ and family. It meets needs for all of us blogging souls. We ship our thoughts out bottled up in electrons and corked with a .com, and we have said something, whether useful or not. Certainly, AJ didn't waste a word.

Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae
libera animas omniurn fidelium. . .
repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam quam olim
Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.

Betsy