The Passing of an Internet Friend

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I got the phone call tonight. Linda Offenheiser lost her battle with lung cancer this week.

There are some of you that also knew Linda from the days when she published “All the Write Stuff” newsletter. A couple of you even asked me to send wishes when I talked to her – and I did. She was always pleasantly surprised that people still remembered her.

Linda always went out of her way to help people. That was her whole reason for publishing her newsletter – to help the little guy who couldn’t afford a high priced copywriter. Her rates for copywriting were well below what others were charging, and she wouldn’t change it.

Linda has been with me since before CommonSenseLiving.com. A few of you might remember ConvenienceNet.com – and my old publications – The Juggling Act. Well, Linda has been an affiliate for that long. She was my top affiliate, and to this day she still gets a couple bucks here and there from work she did over 2 1/2 years ago when she stopped working due to her illness. And she still gets commission payments from another company as well. Guess you could say she knew her business!

I never got to meet Linda face to face. We would talk on the phone, maybe not as often as we should have, but when we did, it would always be at least an hour. I’ll never forget the time my daughter was having a party, and I just sat on the phone talking to Linda. My daughter was like “You’re still on the phone?”

The thing that really amazed me is that through the whole ordeal, Linda never really seemed down. Frustrated that she couldn’t do things, but never down. She never ever talked about dying. if she thought about it, she certainly kept it to herself.

I feel like I’m rambling. I want to talk about things like how she was not as upset about having no hair on her head as she was about having no eyelashes. And how important her family was to her. And how she had gotten to hate where internet marketing had gone. And how she loved those dogs.

Linda was intellegent, ethical, and upbeat. The kind of person I feel fortunate to have called a friend, even if we never really met. It’s a strange world, the internet…

If you would like more information on Linda’s memorial, or if you would like to send a donation to the Hospice of Helping Hands that were so helpful to her – you can find information on her blog at http://fightingforyourlife.blogspot.com/

If you would like any other information, you can contact her daughter Jenny at jcelacks at gmail.com  I got to speak with Jennifer tonight, and she’s every bit as delightful as her mother.

I don’t feel like I’ve given a high enough tribute to the person Linda was, but at this point – I don’t even know what to say other than I’m really going to miss her.