I lost a friend last weekend
I didn't ever know her personally, only on Twitter, but she was the person I contacted on the occasions (three of them) when my account got suspended...once for 24 hours, once for 72 hours, and once for a whole week' to let folks know my account was down, and the last time to let them know where I was. That last time I set up an alternate account and found myself in a little circle of friends that closely resembled a group I'd once known in a chatroom (remember those?) way back in the mid-2000s. It was fun, so I kept that account.
Her screen name was RondaInIowa and she was a feisty, funny, liberal lady with a family and a lot of medical problems. I know, because she told us, that she weighed all of 92 lbs. She worried about her grandkids because at least one was immunocompromised and the anti-vax climate in Iowa where she lived made in-person school dangerous for them; she had been in charge of their homeschooling last year. She was found dead by her son on a routine visit last Friday. The outpouring of grief in our little circle on Twitter has been pretty deep.