Thank you Ausi B! Thank you my anchor

How does someone like AusiB, as she was affectionately known, just drop out of the face of the earth and life just goes on?  It does not. It stops for a moment only to spin a little out of control before falling back on some strange new course.

For the many years I have come to know Beata, the media professional and activist of the high order, I have only got to realise she was not well on a few occasions.  She would be seated, chatting, offering this and that advice, even through long telephone conversations.  Unless you are too observant, you would not know she was in pain. In fact, I would be with her, wallowing in self-pity, and a few days later, I would hear a family member or her colleague say she had been hospitalised or had been home unwell.