Our Dear Friend lash_larue ...

Dear Friends,
After my previous post of January 26, I’ve been in regular contact with Lash’s wife. She has read all your messages to Lash, who was very touched and very happy to know so many people cared about her.

But over the next week, Lash’s situation grew steadily worse. The drastic measure of intubation was taken, and she was kept sedated. Then it became a roller coaster of first doing better, with higher oxygen levels, and then doing worse again, with a fever and a new course of antibiotics.

And now the unthinkable has happened. Our dear friend lash_larue passed away on Tuesday afternoon. P was with her, and the end was very peaceful.

Lash was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever come across, and I consider myself very fortunate to have met her both on LJ and in real life. As I reflect on our times together, I remember her wicked sense of humour, and her uncanny ability to tell a funny story against herself. Lash’s Helpful Household Hints were the stuff of legend. As were her tales of the outrageous things she got up to.

While we were staying at Crone Manor, those stories got even better in telling than they were in writing. Especially when Lash and her soul-sister redbeargrl remembered their youthful exploits. We relative youngsters sat at their feet in awe and we learned and listened, smiling.
I particularly recall the story that combined magnesium and gasoline, and most of us still listened smiling, except for albalark, our resident scientist, who listened with a look of absolute horror.

So here is another Helpful Household Hint: Do not mix these ingredients and then set fire to them..

Everyone who was at one of the two Crone Manors in person will recall those halcyon days and will have memories that will last a lifetime, and Lash was the one who made it all happen. She prepared everything, organized everything, took care of everything and was everywhere at all times to look after our comfort, to the point where we had to use physical force to make her sit down, relax, and enjoy the moment.

And in the world of LJ/DW, too, Lash was a friend extra-ordinaire. She was interested in everything we did and always left a comment to our posts. Frequently, hers was the first comment to appear. She sent supportive messages and her loving presence did so much to turn our LJ circle from a group of assorted Potter fans into a true online family.

Lash was also an extra-ordinary writer. She could do every genre. She wrote light-hearted femslash, but she was also a leading light in the Old Lady Smut Brigade. And she wrote a Fenrir Greyback story that managed to show his human side without excusing him, a feat I’ve never seen repeated.

Was there anything that Lash couldn’t write? We never got the chance to find out. She was game for every challenge. Someone mentioned femslash between two pianos once (believe me, there was a reason) and Lash delivered. She even managed a Dolores Umbridge/Percy Weasley story, and if you haven’t heard Lash doing Umbridge’s voice on a balmy Florida evening at Crone Manor, you haven’t lived.

With her unfailing loyalty, support and kindness, she was a moderator’s dream. In the fourteen years of hoggywartyxmas she took part in every edition, commented to every single entry, beta’ed countless stories, and was the life and soul of the Grand Opening.

It was only occasionally that we got glimpses of just how much our little circle meant to her. Lash’s path through life was not always an easy one. Her greatest source of happiness was, first and foremost, her beloved P, who was her sun, her moon, and her bedrock, too. But for Lash, our LJ circle was a source of profound happiness as well, a safe space, a refuge where she could be exactly who she was, and where – she never stopped to marvel at it – she was loved exactly as she was.

The Crone Manors made that beloved, safe space a living reality, and they meant the world to her, as did all of her LJ/DW friends.

I’m so glad she heard all of our messages and knew she meant the world to us, too. I will always remember her friendship, her sense of humour, her warmth and love.

Perhaps the final lash_larue Helpful Household Hint should be:

Whenever we are in trouble, whenever bad things happen to us, let us remember our friend and think, ‘How would Lash respond to this?”

A great light has gone from our world, but as long as people are remembered, they are not truly gone. Let us all keep Lash alive in our memories, and remember our wonderful friend.


Any memories, messages, or thoughts you wish to share will be passed on to P. I know from personal experience the comfort such messages can bring.
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