Last Monday I received a call from S., a dear friend and writing partner, one of the four who make up ‘Rhada McKai.’ He had what was probably the saddest news I’ve had in a very, very long time. One of our own, one of our four, had crossed the veil.<\/p>\n
J2 – James<\/em> – and I met a long time ago, through a mutual friend. We sorta had a thing very briefly, before I introduced him to Mel. He in turn introduced me to S. and it all became very intertwined for a while. In the end, except for Mel and J2 hiking out for parts western and getting combined (their words, not mine), we were all just damn good friends. Ours was a blend of brief in-person friendships\/relationships fading into enduring long-distance chats and email sessions. While none of them were seeking a professional writing career, we threw in together and created Rhada McKai. The four of us had a snark blog (it’s still there, just no one ever snarks anymore – we’re just too damn busy!) and then the three of them supported my move into the ‘zine (and Belfire as well) by being our first investors. <\/p>\n I wanted to wait until I better knew the situation before I posted this, and it’s even harder now, than it would have been earlier on when I was still in shock. And really, I don’t know anything more yet.<\/p>\n Mel came home from work early Monday morning and discovered that James hadn’t left for work, and indeed hadn’t woken up. At this point all I know is that he was sleeping when he died. I don’t know if Mel has received any autopsy information or not yet, and I know she’ll let me know when she does.<\/p>\n Because really, how does a seemingly healthy 41 yr. old just die in his sleep? \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n I don’t know how Mel is holding up now, I only talked to her briefly on Monday and then again on Wednesday. At the time she was more worried about their commitments than herself or anything else. I did talk to S. on Friday and he’ll be there tomorrow for the service. James wanted to be cremated, and I assume that’s being done. I wish like hell I was out there with them, but financially and otherwise, I just can’t. I’m late with this, but as Watership Down<\/em> was his favorite, I think this is appropriate:<\/p>\n My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n Rest in peace, sweetheart. Feel free to come visit through the mirror.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Monday I received a call from S., a dear friend and writing partner, one of the four who make up ‘Rhada McKai.’ He had what was probably the saddest news I’ve had in a very, very long time. One of our own, one of our four, had crossed the veil.
\nJ2 – James – and I met a long time ago, through a mutual friend. We sorta had a thing very briefly, before I introduced him to Mel. He in turn introduced me to S. and it all became very …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[545,1,104],"tags":[630,628,452,56,629],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belfire-press","category-general-pondering-on-writing","category-new-bedlam","tag-grief","tag-j2","tag-mel","tag-rhada-mckai","tag-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodilee.sacredtriskele.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}