This story is about my friend, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, Linda, who passed beyond our reach in December, but I cannot leave myself out of this story, because I am weeping.
PDNC had 634 Followers at Daily Kos
634 Kosacks Followed Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, Linda McClure.
PDNC Infused Her Wisdom into our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act
While our Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders was crowd-sourcing the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act in 2014, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse often offered us valuable legal advice. Her many-paragraph comments helped us perfect our law. She had our gratitude, and she knew it.
At first when I read her screen name in Daily Kos stories, I really did think that patriots met daily in an office to gather important information to spread to activists around the country, including here at Daily Kos. :o)
The Queen of Blogathons
In a Daily Kos blogathon, many diaries are written in a limited period of time about a certain topic with a purpose of promoting action or raising funds. With others, Linda organized blogathons that focused on hunger, social justice, and environmental issues. She brought Senators, Congresspeople, and a Secretary of State to Daily Kos to write blogs.
I have no idea how many blogathons Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse organized, but in the middle months of 2016, she taught me how to organize a blogathon. She volunteered to mentor me in creating a blogathon for the Community Transcripts Project. During that time, she shared her medical issues with me. [For details of Linda’s illness, please see Aji’s story.] I had somehow missed that Linda was a cancer survivor. When she complained of various pains, I asked her what was going on, and she told me she was a cancer survivor.
Although I have participated in many Community Quilt diaries and received the healing gift of a quilt myself, I somehow managed to overlook her name on the list of recipients that Sara R usually provides. Linda told me of her pain, of her broken ribs, of her recurrent lung mass, of her difficulty breathing, of her brain fog, and of her dissatisfaction with pain medications and her treating physicians. I listened when she needed me to. I regularly mentioned at the end of our many conversions that I would send her healing energy and prayers. One time, early on, I told her something like “I do not know if sending healing energy does any good,” and she replied that for her, it did.
Although weak and in pain, she freely shared with me herself, her wisdom, and her laughter.
As She Lay Dying
When I read that Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse had weeks or months to live, I was no longer in daily or weekly contact with her. We had postponed our joint blogathon for the Community Transcripts Project for many reasons. I knew she was getting too weak to breathe, had too little energy to respond to calls or emails directly. I sent her the following video “3 Hours of Healing & Relaxing Harp Music.” I told her it might help to provide a better acoustic environment in case outside sounds prevented her from resting. I had recently found this video and used it during my morning yoga sessions. I told Linda I would send her healing energy during those sessions. If you have time and technical ability to watch this video, you will see the gorgeous moving images.
After Linda’s death, someone told me that she requested this video more than once. I sometimes see her in the moving images. Rain falls, but ruffled waters become the moon.
Invitation to share funny stories about Linda
While writing this memorial to Linda, to the Daily Kos group A Lake for Lin, I wrote the following:
I see everybody referring to Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse as Lin. Did anyone besides me call her Linda? After she suggested this spring/summer that she mentor me in hosting a blogathon for the Community Transcripts project, when speaking with her on the phone, she always let me call her Linda. She never told me she preferred to be called Linda. My wife Beth joined Linda and me on our phone calls several times. Both my wife and I called PDNC Linda.
By whatever name, I miss her.
My kosmail comment elicited a few sweet replies which I enjoyed out loud, and I would pass them on to you, but the rules of Daily Kos prevent me from relaying those comments to you. I hope my friends backstage will either post their responses as comments, or allow me to do so.
I invite you to share any funny stories you have about Linda McClure in the comments.
Request for videos
In addition, I invite you to post music videos, and not just sad or serene videos. I would frankly appreciate help celebrating Linda’s life and determination and the gifts she brought to us at Daily Kos.
Our sister is gone, but we will remember her and what we learned from her.
Previous stories about Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse and fundraisers for her can be found here. Her profile page is here. All her Daily Kos stories are here.
If you have any questions, even Daily Kos tech questions, please let me know via the comments, kosmail, or email.
Linda's Final Request
Even as she was putting up a valiant fight for her life, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse was also worrying about her beloved sister’s financial wellbeing. We to whom PDNC has given so much can help. We can add our little mickles and make a muckle for Laura. Sometimes the only mickle we have is sharing on social media. If you have a big mickle, we will not object. The GoFundMe widget is here and near the top of the comments. [Edited last paragraph.]