Remembering Dee, for her family

Folks,

Dee was a long-time and special presence here on GWJ, and also in the lives of many of us outside of her activities and roles on the site. She touched many of us directly through her posts as well as her kind and understanding moderation style. In that role, she took on the rough and tumble of hurt feelings, anxiety and frustration in D&D, as well as other parts of the site, which surely makes her *some* kind of saint.

Many of you know that Dee was, like many of us, neurodivergent, and with that side of her she helped other neurodivergents like me navigate unintended offense and situations like RSD or hyper-focus that had moved past the point of discussion into emotional arguments. She contributed to the discussions we had here of autism with understanding and wit. She herself often considered that she fell short of others expectations, but she still took on these roles, helping others while doubting herself. As it is for many of us, this dichotomy rode heavy on her heart, but she still judged being kind and helpful more important than her own fears and doubts. This was also reflected in her offline life; she seemed to always be in a whirl of ways to help others when they needed it.

The thing is, even when we are tightly wrapped in the arms of family, so much of our lives occur in interactions and experiences and stories that happen with people the rest of our families never get to see. Maybe they are mentioned in passing, or remembered fondly by the recipients, but they represent events that are new to AbsurdDoctor and her boys, or if not new, then freighted with emotions for the people she interacted and spent time with (online or in person) that have not been expressed.

As her boys grow up, AbsurdDoctor would like to have a record of what Dee meant to those of us who encountered her in meaningful ways, whether it was through strict but kind moderation, discussions online, or during her many trips to events like this past year's Trivia championships. These can be anything that you think the family should know about her - what she did, what she taught you, or when she helped you while you were down, even just stories of things that happened during visits that you would be comfortable bringing out. This will allow her family to explore and understand some of the ways she actually did meet and exceed the expectations she set for herself, even if it was hard for her to understand at the time.

If you are comfortable telling a story about Dee here, please contribute it. These are for the family's use, and for those of us who want to meditate on the friend we have lost and experience a snippet of her life that we have lost. If you are not comfortable posting something private and special, maybe could DM AbsurdDoctor with your thoughts, so that he can record them in a family book of memories with the others.

I hope that if you were touched by Dee and remember her fondly, that you can share with us or AD your experiences, and contribute to the story vault of her life and times as you knew them. Please consider taking a moment to reflect and share something for her family. It will mean a lot in the coming years.

Thank you so much for this Robear.

My email address is [email protected] but DMs here are great too if you prefer.

My family had the privilige of meeting the Phair Family. Dee was a beautiful person and I enjoyed the visit. I had her once for Secret Stan. She was a great collector of tea cups and I found a lovely set of 4 for her present. I think I also sent some ink for use with her fountain pens. We were chatting after the Stan reveal and Dee shared with me that her mother was teasing her about having to buy a new china cabinet to hold all the tea cups. If I recall correctly, it was very close to the day she opened her Secret Stan present. I learned a lot from her. I will miss our chats and her presence. Dee had a way of brightening the day.

I haven't been as active on the forum as I used to be, but for a long time Dee was one of my favourite folks.

Before she was a mod I always enjoyed discussions that she got involved in, her insight and perspective were valuable and she opened my eyes to issues of being a woman, and a Black woman in America.

She always defaulted to warmth but when pushed she had an acidic sense of humour which was a delight to see deployed. Less so when it was directed at me, but I did respect it.

As a mod she was always firm but fair, allowing people to have their say, but not tolerating any nonsense.

And she's one of the GWJers I'm privileged to have as a friend on Facebook. We've both gotten into fights (with other people) in each other's comments over the years and her wit was even more apparent there. She was totally open and outspoken on matter of ethics that were dear to her and even though we didn't chat as much as I now wish we had, her presence on my feed always made me happy.

I'm sorry to the family and I'm going to miss her.

We didn't have much direct interaction but I will say this:
She had a talent for writing that if she was not a writer professionally, she should have been. I hope its something her kids inherit because whether moderating or expressing an opinion of a sensitive subject she got to the point clearly and concisely.
I would say GWJers in general are well above average writers whether we brought it here and/or got better because of here. However, many of us love us some semantics, devil's advocacy and our walls of text. Something Dee cut through easily and without furthering agitation. It felt less like an attack or scold and more like a warm cookie in your mouth that turned your bitterness into mumbling while chewing something inarguably delicious.
Its an incredibly rare skill to not be passed along and a great loss. I am sure that is only a small sample of her value to our community, her friends and her family.

10 years ago, Dee was one of the people reaching out to me in the Depression is Ruining My Life thread as I was going through a pretty rough situation.

She was doing so, in spite of dealing with some tough stuff herself. I was thankful then for her caring input, and I am thankful now re-reading through the exchanges. I hope she knew how much she was helping others, and I hope we were able to help her as well.

I only really started seeing Dee's posts once I started working on the moderation staff. My moderation style leans more towards the punishment end of things. Dee was a very nice balance to that. She had a talent for seeing the human on the other side of the computer screen.

She was a tireless defender and supporter of those who didn't roll quite as well on the privilege table in the character creation part of this whole game called life.

She will be missed greatly.