Final Aussiegirl update -- sad news!
This is a sad day for Ultima Thule readers: its creator and guiding spirit, Aussiegirl, passed away this afternoon at around 2 p.m. The operation was successful, but unfortunately the cancer, which it turns out had been working away symptomlessly for months, had already spread and was attacking her organs. Try as they could, her excellent doctors couldn't bring her system under enough control to allow them to start chemotherapy.
She was only 59, and had many years of wonderful writing and thinking ahead of her. She was already planning an article about her stay in the hospital -- what a treat we were robbed of, with all the insights and witty writing that she could have so easily given such an article!
She was very appreciative of all the prayers and good wishes that her many readers, from around the globe, sent her way. The cancer was too powerful, but they still gave her spiritual comfort -- and Aussiegirl was a wonderfully spiritual person.
posted by Aussiegirl @ 10:32 PM
25 Comments:
I shall miss our dear Aussiegirl so very much. I will always cherish the many e-mails I had from her and our spirited chats, whether in person or by computer, about the joys of our mutual love of music (how she loved the trills in Beethoven's piano music), cats and politics. Prayers for her dear husband who cared for her so beautifully, and to her mother and sister who loved her so much.
I am deeply saddened to learn that our very dear friend, Aussiegirl, has passed away. I know the pain and sorrow her wonderful husband and her family must be experiencing. Please accept my profound condolences. She will forever live in my memory. No comfort is quite enough to replace her loss.
May she soar freely in the peaceful heavens of the Creator and may her family find that peaceful stride on the journey that still lies ahead. May her soul rest in peace.
My thoughts and my prayers are with her family, during this tumultuous times.
Amil
I too will miss her; I only knew her via the Internet, and we e-mailed back and forth. I admired her intelligent and perceptive posts on a forum we both frequented, and she encouraged me in my own blogging. She was quite an inspiration to me.
She was truly one of a kind, one in a million.
Condolences to her family and friends.
I am so very sorry. May our Heavenly Father comfort her family and friends.
That is such sad news, let her memory be an inspiration to us all and her passing away seen as but a rebirth into the spirit world.
God bless to her nearest and dearest!
Oh dear! I've been reading/lurking at her site for a long time now, and this saddens me so.
I'm a Ukrainian-American from New York City, and felt a kinship with her and her lovely spirit.
'Vichnaya Pamyat' ... RIP
Natalka
She will be missed, and missed badly!
The world has grown a bit darker because of her passing.
God bless you, Aussiegirl, and may He bless your husband and all those you have loved in this world! I know you are with Him now in Heaven, and you will not be forgotten here on Earth by all of us whose lives you have enriched with your friendship.
Aussiegirl will never die -
her brilliance will always shine because a memory can never be forgotten...
Mnho Hiya Lihta
What a sad day and a terrible loss. Aussigirl enriched all those she came in touch with. At least we have the memory of her...may we all cherish it.
Vichnaya pamyat!
May her friends, family and loved ones be comforted in their grief and may God and all the angels welcome her with open arms.
May God comfort her family at this time. I just re-read an email she sent to me in 2005. I am saddened at her passing.
I always delighted in her intellect and kind spirit, and I will miss her contributions. God bless her soul and give some comfort to her loved ones.
As a loyal reader of Lucianne.com, I greatly enjoyed Aussiegirl's posts over the years. So it was a real shock reading this sad and unexpected news. But from my perspective there is a small, but significant, silver lining. I had not known of her blog. Now, thanks to Lucianne, I've seen it for the first time, and I will be reading all her archives. Because I love the same subjects Aussiegirl wrote about.
Requiescat in pace, Aussiegirl.
- baja_ha
What terrible, sad news.
What a tragic loss.
The world was made a better place while Helen was in it; the world is now sadder and duller that she has left.
Though the phrase has been cheapened by a certain radio talk host, truly Helen was a great American.
She was an import, and knew and appreciated America's values and America's value better than many a native.
Though of course I personally am heartbroken, the loss is really to the whole country, to the whole world.
I will miss her the rest of my life.
My prayers and sympathies go especially to her family.
It is so easy to say she will be missed, but in her case it is true. I always enjoyed her posts and respected her beliefs even if I disagreed with them (which was very rare).
Sad news. May she rest in peace.
My deepest condolences. This is a sad and tragic loss to us all.
Gone too soon. We need more Americans like this.
Losing someone to cancer is an unfortunately all to common occurrence in today's world. My deepest condolences to her family.
I will always remember you Aussiegirl. We never met but corresponded frequently via email. In my darkest hour you gave me hope that all will be well and that God is with me every step of the way. You are now with God and His Son Jesus. May God rest your soul.
Marty
I was really shocked to receive the news.
I stumbled across this website by accident, after searching the internet for "Ultima Thule".
Whilst I am conservative leaning, I do not fathom the reflexive, bigoted style of some conservative bloggers. Aussiegirl's style was very refreshing; conservative, yet respectful. She never descended to personal attacks on others and was a polite, intelligent person of integrity.
I am proud she chose her internet identity as "Aussiegirl"; her time here seems to have made a great impression of her. I will miss her recollections of Australia, and I prize her memory of bushfires around the Sydney area as she recounted them to me.
I am also proud of the fact that she became a citizen of the US eventually, after much trial and tribulation on the part of her and her family.
David, would it be possible to include a photo of her on this site in the near future for her friends to remember her by?
Vale Helen.
Glenn (Skipper)
Sydney, Australia
America, Ukraine, the world, and our endless fight for Liberty have lost a great champion. Not one who battled with muscle and sinew but fought against ignorance and oppression just as fiercely with her wisdom, wit, and subtle persuasion. She inspired many and illuminated us all in the light of her intellect and compassion.
Go with god Aussiegirl
Describe me as a bit floored here.
People like Aussiegirl aren't supposed to just up and die, but there ya go.
I identified with Helen (if I may call her by her name that I just now learned) and her upbringing, like all the kids of parents who were D.P.s after the war.
But there's not many who verbalized the experience as she did, and moreso as WELL as she did.
She and I simply exchanged a couple of lines here at this blog, but reading her felt like reading something written by a friend from my childhood.
A friend who I truly liked.
And respected.
I kept checking back expecting recovery news here, not this.
I'll definitely miss her.
Obviously all who wrote here will.
And my sincerest condolences to Helen's husband and to all the others in her family.
Sincerely,
Rimas in Chicago
The best (indeed, the only) way to honor the passing of someone who struggled for liberty in the former USSR -- Anna Politikovskaya being the most luminous example -- is to make sure that their life was not in vain, that the struggle is carried on to a successful conclusion. Many would be happy to give their lives on liberty's battlefields if they knew that their sacrifice would be a beacon for others to follow after.
Remember, they are watching.
I've been away from my computer for quite a while, and I was extremely upset by the news that dear Aussiegirl had passed away. What a loss to everyone, to her husband, to her many, many friends all over the world! Her blog was unique, because Aussiegirl was unique, with a unique blend of blindingly sharp intellect, wit, a marvelously colloquial style of writing, enthusiasm, and an interest in every conceivable topic, from quantum physics to Verdi, to politics -- and especially a deep understanding of things spiritual.
For some reason, a poem by a poet that we both loved, Gerard Manley Hopkins, occurred to me, and I'd like to quote it in remembrance of Aussiegirl:
FELIX RANDAL the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended 5
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears, 10
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!
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