January 11, 2011

Dear Grace,

I know, this mail is loooooong overdue, I’m so sorry! Of course I remember you (even your tag I’ve never forgotten, believe it or not!! But I’m losing hope that I’ll ever manage to take it up…)

You might know that a few weeks after your comment I was diagnosed with cancer, so I’m going through some tumultuous times right now… It’s very hard for me to sit and type – apparently those terrible backaches are caused by metastases in my bones. So please don’t take it personally if I don’t reply to messages. I am trying to keep up my blog with some resemblance of regularity, so at least my friends will know what’s going on with me.

Sorry again – and I send you my best wishes for a wonderful New Year! (Better late than never!! )

xxx
Sabine of Gozo (http://www.scagozo.com)

*****

This was the last email I received from Sabine – a lady living in the beautiful island of Malta in the Mediterranean whom I “met” through blogging. This was my reply:

January 11, 2011

Grace from Dubai

I continued to read her blog but never got an email again. She was getting weaker but I still wished her full recovery and she was always in my thoughts.

Sabine lost her battle to cancer yesterday and my heart is bleeding.

She was a wonderful woman, so elegant and modest at the same time and very in touch with readers of her blog. I was wishing one day to be able to visit Malta and see her personally. She was one of my few online friends whom I really wanted to meet.

That day won’t come now.

Cancer sucks. It doesn’t choose people, no, actually I feel that it does choose people: it takes away the beautiful, wonderful people who  otherwise still needed to be here. Death relieves the cancer patient of pain and suffering but the pain remains in the hearts of loved ones and friends left behind.

I wish for a world free of cancer one day, soon.

Thanks to mine and Sabine’s common friend (another) Sabine from  California who informed me of the sad news.

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