Dear Tom,
No apologies necessary - and thank you for updating us on the list.
While I do not know that Debbie ever wrote an email to the list, I -
and I believe many with me - felt as if we knew her, rejoiced with
her when things went well, suffered when not. And always, we wished
for the best for her and you and for your kids.
I mourn with you the passing of Debbie, and you and the girls have my
deepest condolences and my best wishes in this hardest of times.
Your friend,
Thomas
On Sep 6, 2006, at 12:37 PM, Tom Scales wrote:
>
> To those of you fairly new on the list, this email will likely not
> make much
> sense. To those that have been here forever, you will know of my
> journey
> with my wife Debbie and I thought you would like to know the latest
> news.
>
> Debbie's health has been up and down in the last few years but she
> continued
> to improve. She was on dialysis, but that was going well. We had
> taken up
> riding a tandem (2 seat) bicycle as her eyesight was too bad to
> ride her
> bike. In the last year we rode over 9,000 miles and had great fun
> doing it.
>
> Last Thursday we were involved in a very minor accident while
> riding the
> tandem. A truck turned right on red without looking and hit us,
> knocking us
> down. It was not a bad accident and we rode on and finished the day
> with
> almost 40 miles.
>
> What we didn't know is that the accident had broken a small blood
> vessel
> deep in her brain. Even if we had known, there was nothing that
> could have
> been done, so I will treasure that days ride. She slipped into a
> coma on
> Friday and passed away peacefully at home early Monday morning in
> my arms.
>
> After all she has been through over the last 20 years, it is so sad
> that
> such a simple accident is what took her life. As most of you know,
> we have
> two teenage daughters who are, of course, stunned, but will learn
> to go on,
> as will I.
>
> One positive is that Debbie has been involved in technology for the
> blind
> for many years. She ran a very popular mailing list for the blind
> and has
> spent many thousands of hours helping people all around the world
> with their
> problems. You can't even imagine how hard it is to help someone
> that uses a
> screen reader. Imagine using the computer today, all day, without ever
> touching the mouse, with your eyes closed, with computer reading
> everything
> to you. I let the people in the blind community know of her loss
> and have
> received over 400 emails from around the world from people sharing how
> Debbie had personally helped them with a problem and literally
> changed their
> lives.
>
> Sorry to intrude with a personal note, but there are many here that I
> thought would want to know.
>
> Tom Scales
> tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Thomas Clausen
Thomas.Clausen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/Labo/Thomas.Clausen/
http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/hipercom/
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