The blogosphere lost two of its prominent members in the last week or so, the first being Marc Orchant of blognation and the second being Anita Rowland who was apparently quite famous in the Seattle area. 

I had never heard of Ms. Rowland and had read Mr. Orchant only sparingly but the blogosphere is a big community in many ways and a death within that community tends to touch all its members especially when it has come from unnatural causes.  Normally I wouldn't post on such a topic but my low profile assures me that this will never see the front page of a meme site so I thought I'd share a thought that struck me.

One of the unintended consequences of a blog is that your thoughts are, for lack of a better way of putting it, stuck in time.  Even after you're gone they persist.  Mr Orchant made a post about half a day before his heart attack.  In it he writes about giving up on Facebook (with Beacon being the last straw as far as I can tell).  He writes...

Done.

I’ve done my absolute best to eliminate any trace of myself on Facebook. It was a total PITA. And I only used it casually. I can only imagine how it long it would take someone like Scoble to manually remove each friend one at a time.

I feel so much better now…

What strikes me is that the words above are the same words you could read on any blog out there during any average, ordinary day.  In fact, by all accounts that is exactly the kind of day he was having before his heart attack.  To be concerned with something so trivial he couldn't have even suspected what was to come.

You can go on endlessly about how life is fragile and how it can all be taken in an instant but I don't think anything makes that point more poignantly than reading the ordinary thoughts of a person who lost their life not 12 hours later.  Like I said, I didn't know Mrs. Rowland and only occasionally read Mr. Orchant but after this experience I don't think I'll forget them for as long as I live. 

Rest in Peace.