I feel so sad for her partner and family and friends; and I also keep thinking what a loss for our future. She had such an impact so young; imagine her contribution over a long life.
Everything I’ve heard suggests she was comfortable in her last days and went very peacefully. It’s not a consolation but it’s the only positive thing I can think of with respect to her passing. So sorry for her loved ones.
I’ve no doubt of Magdalen Berns was a brave and fierce advocate whose future would have encompassed the exploration of fascinating ideas and the development of theoretical frameworks to grapple with difficult concepts, and she might well have been a leading voice to help guide progressives out of the gendered wilderness that so many of us seem to have fallen into.
But, more than that, she was a young woman taken by a terrible disease far too soon. Those who knew her, those who loved her, will now have to navigate the unnavigable wilderness of pain and loss that their world has become. Nothing will ever be able to help them make sense of it; there is nothing they could have done to avert this, no propitiation they could have given, no sacrifice they could have made. There was nothing that she, or they, had ever done to deserve this fate, no justice nor villainy in the outcome. No court can redress their grievance, no avenging hero can balance the scales. It is simply something those who loved her will have to survive, and eventually learn to live with. The plans that they had made have come to naught, and they must reconcile themselves to a universe whose infinite possibilities exclude ever speaking with her or holding her or laughing or crying or making love or arguing with her or entertaining or disappointing or enrapturing or enraging her ever, ever, ever again.
Hopefully, at some point, they will be able to keep her spirit alive, and yet put her ghost to rest.
That made me cry.
Yeah. It’s just a horrible loss.
I suppose Rachel McKinnon is throwing a party to celebrate. The s**t.
I feel so sad for her partner and family and friends; and I also keep thinking what a loss for our future. She had such an impact so young; imagine her contribution over a long life.
She was brilliant. What a loss.
Such a loss for us all and very hard on her family and friends.
She was very witty; the one silver lining is that there is still her body of work, which will continue to be relevant for years to come.
Everything I’ve heard suggests she was comfortable in her last days and went very peacefully. It’s not a consolation but it’s the only positive thing I can think of with respect to her passing. So sorry for her loved ones.
I’ve no doubt of Magdalen Berns was a brave and fierce advocate whose future would have encompassed the exploration of fascinating ideas and the development of theoretical frameworks to grapple with difficult concepts, and she might well have been a leading voice to help guide progressives out of the gendered wilderness that so many of us seem to have fallen into.
But, more than that, she was a young woman taken by a terrible disease far too soon. Those who knew her, those who loved her, will now have to navigate the unnavigable wilderness of pain and loss that their world has become. Nothing will ever be able to help them make sense of it; there is nothing they could have done to avert this, no propitiation they could have given, no sacrifice they could have made. There was nothing that she, or they, had ever done to deserve this fate, no justice nor villainy in the outcome. No court can redress their grievance, no avenging hero can balance the scales. It is simply something those who loved her will have to survive, and eventually learn to live with. The plans that they had made have come to naught, and they must reconcile themselves to a universe whose infinite possibilities exclude ever speaking with her or holding her or laughing or crying or making love or arguing with her or entertaining or disappointing or enrapturing or enraging her ever, ever, ever again.
Hopefully, at some point, they will be able to keep her spirit alive, and yet put her ghost to rest.