Saturday, October 13, 2007

Eda Neuheimer

This is not the usual travel blog post, though my friend Eda Neuheimer was a great traveler, and has taken the ultimate trip. Rather, I am posting this note on the public blog for those who may be looking for Eda, thinking she seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. She has.

A sad day, today. I learned that I have fewer friends than I did yesterday, but one more angel: After some weeks of wondering why Eda's emails had stopped and my phone messages to her weren't returned, I finally contacted her employer, Peel Board of Education, in Mississauga. Through them, I learned that Eda died on / about August 23, 2007. At home, alone in Mississauga, Ontario, she had 'slipped into a diabetic coma' and never recovered'.

In Eda's memory, the staff at Elm Street School, in Mississauga (where Eda taught for a number of years) has planted a tree, and will contact me when the memorial plaque is ready to be placed.

To those online students she tutored, I apologize for breaking the news so bluntly and in such a public medium, but I wanted you to have some means of finding out what happened to your teacher.