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The free spirit that is Elizabeth Anne has taken wings and flown.
The flame that burned so brightly,
with such amazing energy, no longer lights our lives and we are poorer for
it. But Elizabeth would
be the first to say that this life is just a step along the road and we should
not grieve her passing but
rather celebrate the time we shared with her.
I knew Elizabeth at her beginning, the period 1979-1980 when she was quite
literally finding herself.
We shared amazing and unique experiences together and were there for one another
when it counted.
The Christmas after we met Elizabeth gave me my first very own computer and
started me down a
road that led to a new career. Together we explored every single zero/one bit
of that machine and
ended up writing the best selling Home Computer book in Europe in 1983. She
had a unique psi gift:
whatever crash-proof program I wrote, she would invariably crash it in minutes.
My present to her
that Christmas was a Fender guitar which reflected her life long passion for
music.
I regarded her as a dear friend and a, somewhat wayward, surrogate daughter.
I think she regarded
me as a friend and mentor. In winter nights by the fire throughout the early
1980’s we explored Zen
and philosophy and watched movies late into the small hours. She was an apt
pupil, taking to the
world of ideas with the enthusiasm which characterized everything she did.
She would waltz into
the room and within minutes would have everyone involved in her latest project.
Elizabeth also gave me the one experience of my life I cannot explain rationally.
One day, after she
had moved to America, she rang me and asked if I was alright. “I’m
fine,” I said. “Why do you
ask?”. “I had the strangest feeling”, she replied. “As
if someone very close to me, like my mother,
was ill.” I responded by repeating that I was fine. A few minutes later
she phoned me back. “I just
rang my family,” she said. “My mother died last night.” Now
you explain that rationally! If she had
been ringing me every week with messages like that, then it could be just random
chance. But in 24
years there was just one call of that kind and she was spot on.
Elizabeth was a part of my life and we often chatted by phone or across the
Internet. I fully expected
that one day soon she and Barbie would come to visit me in the mountains and
I would proudly
show them what I had done with my beautiful isolated Welsh farmhouse. It was
so real to me and
I looked forward to it so much. I just knew she would love it here. And now
she is gone and it will
never happen.
I am richer and changed by having known Elizabeth, she was an important part
of my life. She was
my friend. Fly singing high little bird. I will miss you.
Antonia J. Jones, 12 October 2003.
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