Did anyone get anywhere with coming up with a reading for/from us to be used at the funeral? If not, it occurrs to me that there have been many wonderful statements of how much we love ita here and in Natter that might - with permission of various posters - be cobbled together for that purpose. I bring this up because after having work suck my brain out for the last several days, I have today and tomorrow off, and could make a start on it if it seems like a good idea to folks.

Why not just a piece of Safe Harbor From Ann Arbor?

Windy I was thinking the same thing.

And I keep looking at the Supernatural thread name -- Family don't end with blood. It's so appropriate for ita. Maybe that can be incorporated because it not only describes the Buffistas but ita had other people who were her found family. For me, at least, I wouldn't really understand the concept of a chosen family or found family without the Buffistas. Like any large famity we are speak out and can't see each other in person as often as we'd like, but we havE reunions when we can. It's not a perfect family, but no family is. But when we need each other we are here. Even when people need support or help for their other non Buffistas families We are still here for each other.

"This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good."

But when we need each other we are here. Even when people need support or help for their other non Buffistas families We are still here for each other.

To my way of thinking, that is the definition of a perfect family.

The Moji stories are breaking my heart especially bad. I'm sure she's never heard my name but she was so important to ita and they were so close, I feel like I know her. I know a lot about her, at least. She is strong and fierce and loyal like her sister. And she gets that a group of what should be strangers on the internet is one of the most community-like communities I have known.

And I just assumed there'd be some endless array of F2Fs and visits to LA, and there weren't.

I sort of thought that too. Even when I moved. I thought we'd all get together again. And anyone missing would be a conflict or some thing easily understood. I didn't want to think it could be this.

I think that in front of ita's parents and sister, explicit statements about the Buffistas being ita's family might be seen as being hurtful. We don't mean "we're her family instead of her birth family", but that's what statements about families-by-choice often mean.

It's not that the intent is wrong, but her not-at-all-estranged blood family will be right there, and it's important to give their grief precedence at their beloved daughter and sister's funeral.

Betsy, that's an excellent point. I'm not saying there's a hierarchy to grief (i.e., I'm grieving more than you are!), per se, because some friends ARE chosen family, and there's no way to quantify a loss.

And yet, I've been thinking, for the past week, if I'm so gutted by ita's death, what must her family be feeling?

I think we can express how very much ita meant to us as a friend without using language that might be hurtful to her family despite the intent behind it.

I support Betsy's statement...also from the perspective that we, meaning the Stateside folks, had the option to be with and see her more often than they did. Which, in a time of grief could be greatly inflated.

I'd love for the statement to be that we loved her like family, but that can be offered with the touch of an arm, rather than in front of the congregation. Especially, as someone else noted, ita had other virtual communities who might lay the same claim.

It's funny, ita is the second person whose death has made me think, 'what is it about this person that makes so MANY people want to claim her as their own?'

My friend Liz was the same way.

I wish I could say the same!

Betsy's right - the chosen family is, for so many of us, absolutely vital, but one of the things I always found magical about ita was how her ability to create and draw people into these chosen families was clearly not so much driven the need for something she'd never had, as by an expansion of the deep groundedness she already had. She knew and loved her parents and Moji so much and was so completely assured of their knowledge and love in return that it gave her a superabundance of... I don't even know. Of superabundance.