The Family Girl Blogs (aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") Blog #2: Bob the Bear To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs

I just found out Bob Arnold passed away.

I knew him, that is to say, I barely knew him.   I had no occasion to talk with him, whether via a PM here in BC or via an email, much less interact with him in the real world.   I guess that's my loss.

I knew him more as the owner and administrator of the Stardust website, as well as the administrator of the shared chat room of Stardust and BC, which I used to be a frequent visitor of.   Nowadays, I don't anymore since my old gang doesn't visit it anymore as well.   I remember with fondness those days when the old gang and I would stay late into the night and talk about nothing and everything, where conversations would spontaneously ebb and flow, and, as the night wore on, each of us would sign off and grab some shuteye, or whatever, typically leaving me and Mutabilis as the last to be on-line (Mutabilis coz of a flipped-over time zone n me coz of insomnia), only to be back in there again the following night   And, in those few times when the chat room would shut down and all of us started feeling withdrawal pains, Bob Arnold would post a reassuring blog that, although the chat room was down, he'd have it up in short order.   And he was always as good as his word - the chat room would be back up pretty quickly.

As just a user of the site and the chat room, I, like most users, take the stuff we get from the site for granted, rarely sparing a thought to what it takes to keep them going.   I hate to think that Bob, perhaps even Erin and all the others in the community who give us such service (the one that comes to mind is Crystal and her site, Storysite), felt taken for granted. At the very least, I would want to send him a short PM, saying, "thanks, Bob, for taking care of the site," but it's too late now since he's gone.

I am a Christian (though since transition, I'm a little unsure of what particular kind anymore since organized religion hasn't really pigeonholed people like me yet), and as one, I believe in an afterlife, so I can actually post it here and know that he will read it.   But for me, such messages, such conversations, are private things best done one-on-one.   Catholics know all about such one-on-one conversations, when they light their candles in church and say a silent whispered prayer that only their loved ones will hear.   When we say something like "farewell" or "God bless" or "I miss you" or "I love you" out loud, I have this sneaking suspicion that its actually meant for other people.   I mean, would you yell "I love you" across a crowded coffeehouse at your beloved, unless you meant for others to hear?

So it is a declaration, to everyone, instead of a message meant just for Bob, when I say "thank you, and I will miss you."

When I finished all of my surgical operations late August or September of '04, and I was home recuperating and looking for a job online, worrying about what the future will bring, I became an avid fan and frequent visitor of sites like Fictionmania and Crystal's Storysite (of course, back then, FM was a much more friendly site, and less hardcore than it is now, with less arguments in their chats and less... graphic stories that paid more attention to people interaction than to anything else).   And I spent my days reading these stories, alleviating my loneliness with the wonderful stories I found there.     

I can't remember where I read one of Bob's stories - in FM, Storysite maybe, or some other site (it was seven years ago, after all) - a story with the title, "Zapped."   For a scifi-slash-comicbook fan, a title like that was like a red cape being waved in front of a bull.   When I read it, though, I was initially disappointed coz instead of being about some costumed guy who wore a cape and underwear on the outside performing amazing feats of derring-do, or people exploring a planet populated by killer cyborgs with bad skin conditions, it was a story about a former-guy named Jennifer Stevens, and how she made her way through life, discovering love, happiness and purpose.   I couldn't have found a better time to read such a story coz it, as well as several others written by other equally-talented writers, uplifted me at a time when I sorely needed it.   Thoughts of loneliness and hopelessness circled me like vultures then, and I sorely needed these stories.   I doubt I would be here now if not for some friends and these stories.

I had long connected that particular story, plus a few others, with Bob.   I had noticed that he liked to use "Bob" as the name of his lead male character in his stories, as well as the name "Bear." I therefore couldn't help but think that, for him, his stories, like mine, were like a form of wishful thinking, that it is a way to realize, even if in a virtual way, the wishes that many of us here have, projecting himself into his own stories and make his wishes come true, sort of.   Maybe Bob's nickname really was Bear.   I would like to think it was.   I suppose that's just the romantic in me.

I think he knew what was coming.   Coz in recent months, he turned over control and management of Stardust and everything connected to it to Erin.   I can only hope that it gave him a kind of solace or contentment, that he had already passed the torch.

I guess I knew Bob, then, if just the image I have pieced together in my mind.   And if the image in my mind doesn't match the reality, I'm sure Bear will understand and say, "that's okay," as he writes another story, wherever he is now, and will soon be posting it in his new website, wherever that is.

Thank you, Bear.   Wherever you are.   May you have all that you have ever wished for. I'll be lighting a candle for you tomorrow. Hope you don't think that's too silly.

click here to read my old Working Girl Blogs, click here to read all of my blogs, click here to read my stories in BCTS, and click here to see my profile & know more about me.

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