The passing of Vera Mont, dear friend.

Francis has kindly shared their website: at montland.ca with her blogs, books and “Grandma’s Garage”.
Getting to know their wonderful story in the Land of the Monts !
https://montland.ca/aboutus.html

Very sad indeed, a patient and articulate contributor here for many years. :broken:

Reply to Wayfarer
I know. I can't believe it. :broken:

Bugger.


Thank you, Reply to Amity, for passing this on.

Reply to Amity

From that blog:

Quoting Vera's Blog

Commemorating a person is a little more ambiguous. What constitutes a monument to a person? Does it have to be an outsized bronze or marble statue in their likeness, placed at a major traffic intersection or gateway to a seat of government, poised on a high pedestal, surrounded by subsidiary statues and friezes, surmounted by a portico or canopy of marble and labelled with a brass plaque outlining his* achievements? Or does it mean all sculptural representations of a famous person in any communal space, such as a park, the atrium of a city hall or rotunda of a library? How about oil paintings in the halls of legislative and judiciary proceeding? Does it count as a monument when a school, library, garden, theater or community center is named for a person who contributed nothing to the establishment of that public amenity?

Sometimes one's posts are a monument.

Reply to Banno :up: Thanks Vera. Sorry you've gone from our lives.

Wow. Such a presence. I'm sure even more in person than here. My condolences to her family and friends.

Very sad. Vera, I'll miss you. :broken: :flower:

Incredibly sad! I cherished her comments and feedback in the past short story events. Few felt as honest and personal in opinions and ideas, with gravitas. She will be missed. :worry:

Reply to Amity
This is shocking news! Vera was such an important writer on the forum. She made significant contributions to so many discussions, including the recent essay activity in the past couple of weeks.

I am aware of various members struggling with health problems. Also, I have been hospitalized with pneumonia twice in the last couple of months. We are all mortal beings as we pursue the philosophical questions. Everything in life is impermanent and all exploration occurs within the uncertainties of an unknown future.

Vera will be missed so much on the forum for her unique contributions, and, thank you for informing everyone through starting this thread.

Dear Vera, Rest in Peace. A sad time.

That's terrible news. She had a way of making a conversation turn back to what's practical.

Condolences to the family -- she will be missed here.

Quoting Jack Cummins

We are all mortal beings as we pursue the philosophical questions. Everything in life is impermanent and all exploration occurs within the uncertainties of an unknown future.

:death: :flower:

Shocking! That's very sad news. It feels like yesterday when she gave the feedback on my stories in the 'short story competition.'

Rest in peace, Vera! Thanks for everything.

And thanks @Amity for letting us know.

So good to read your individual tributes. Sharing new thoughts and memories of Vera.

Overall, a positive and shining light. Caring. Even in the midst of difficulties. In her own words:

Vera:Overall, it's been engaging, challenging, worthwhile and even fun.

On hearing of my decision to leave TPF:

Vera:Come back when you feel up to it, to participate in what feels right.
Meanwhile, heal!

I intend to read more of her writing, blog and fiction. To take time and savour, when I am feeling better.
But right now, it's time to rest. And reflect...to follow Vera's wise words. :heart: :flower:

And to all, who are going through difficult times - stay strong. Take care. :pray: :sparkle:
And yes, seize the day by its scruffy collar...get a grip. Swear if you must. Then, smile through the tears.

This is very sad. I only knew Vera from her posts. But I always found them worth reading. Her voice was always distinctive and, in my view, constructive. I shall miss them a great deal.

Very sad news. My condolences to her family and all her loved ones.

Rest in peace, Vera!

Vera was one of those members whose comments I always liked and whose discussions I enjoyed. Very sad to hear this. Condolences to her family.

[quote=Lao Tzu]Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts for ever.[/quote]

In a little while we will forget, but not just yet.

Reply to Amity

My dearest condolences! :broken: She will be missed.

Quoting Amity

Vera was the best… I enjoyed her intelligence, wisdom and wit. Her stories of real life and fiction captivated me. Extraordinary.
A purrfect participant as writer, reader and responder…

Indeed.

Full of life, color and personality, pouring through this often dry, black and white forum. She was always fun to read. And such a great writer.

She disagreed with almost everything I said, so when we did agree, which also happened, you know something heartfelt had been shared all the more.

So sorry to hear this.

I know she would not recommend I waste my time, but I will remember her and Francis in my prayers anyway, because I know she would have told me to do whatever works for me.

That's very sad to hear. She will be very missed, she was a great contributor.

I knew her as a major contributor to our TPF Fiction Competition. I'm shocked and saddened by our loss of her presence so soon.

So sorry to hear this! Terrible news. I appreciated her grounded, wise posts and excellent fiction, and her generous constructive criticism to other writers. She will certainly be missed here.

That's a shock. I enjoyed her posts.

May she rest in peace. :flower:

Dear Vera, thank you for having graced this forum. It was a better place because of it. On a personal note also thanks for reviews on my own writing. :flower:

Damn, I liked her a lot.

R.I.P Vera.

[quote= Vera's last sentence of her last pf post]Human beings, like sea lions and zebras, are individual, real, particular, unique - not generalities forming a dull backdrop against which the special ones suffer mental anguish and shine like stars.
6 days ago[/quote]

Not a bad place to stop. A star set in a background of stars. Thank you!

RIP @Vera Mont :flower: You'll be missed

A message and wonderful tribute from Vera's husband, Francis:

I am reading the comments about Vera on the thread you started, and I wish I could send them back in time so she could see how much she was appreciated by so many. Thank you, Amity, for starting that thread, it makes me very proud of her and feel honoured to have spent the last 45 years with her.


Here is my tribute to her:

Without sparks our world is a dead world without fire, without warmth, without life. The cavemen needed the spark of lightning for his first fire; later the farmer needed the spark of the flint to heat his home and cook his meal. Still later, it was the spark of the match doing the same, in our homes and in the furnaces of our industry. Throughout man's history we needed and depended on the sparks in the minds of our creative geniuses who turned darkness into light, cold into warmth and ignorance into understanding.

This rare and invaluable property of the human mind is the most important and the least understood in our Universe. We know about neurons in the brain and the electrical impulses jumping from one to the other when they fire, but we don't know what turns these sparks into creative human thought. We only see the result and sometimes it is spectacular; but often it is unrecognized for a long time - until the ground is prepared for the spark to start a fire.

The most important element of creative human thought is the ability to look at things out of context. It sounds so simple, but it is the most difficult of human achievements. Most of us learn to accept context through years and years of training from the earliest childhood. We have been told and told by our parents and our teachers and our siblings, peers and leaders that "this is the way the world is" and we ended up taking it for granted: inevitable, immutable, the nature of things. Very few of us managed to hang on to a shred of critical thinking and insist on questions that were consistently dismissed by everyone as childish, naïve, disruptive, even evil.

The second important element is the ability to free-associate ideas. To try unusual combinations of concepts never tried together before is the best way of finding new thoughts, new ways of making things work, of solving unsolvable problems. You need an element of playfulness bordering on the whimsical: to achieve this, you must be able to find delight in play for its own sake. We all remember those moments when hearing about a new and marvelously simple idea, we felt a pang of regret: "why didn't I think of that?"

The third element (without which the other two would languish unrealized) is the courage to be different. We are basically herd animals, with the instinct of cattle grazing together on a meadow. We are so terrified to stand outside the protective circle of our peers that very few of us risk the insecurity, doubt and fear that comes from standing alone. Never mind the scorn, ridicule and resentment that is an automatic reaction of the herd toward their troublemakers.

You need that invaluable quality that very few of us possess: being self-sufficient, knowing who we are, what we think and how we feel, completely independently from, and often in spite of, anyone else around us. Sculpted from a single piece of marble as it were (rather than a patchwork of roles, identities, opinions, attitudes that most of us picked up here and there over a lifetime) these self-sufficient, self-defined creators amongst us are like pieces of art: self-evident, self-consistent, immutable, beyond analysis and most of the time beyond understanding.

The rest of us have our places and roles and they are necessary functions, required to give life to the creative idea. We must understand, appreciate and support it. It needs engineers and organizers and craftsmen to give it shape and substance, but without the spark that started it, the fire would not come forth from the heap of dry leaves and twigs and branches that we gathered: you need the shaman with the lantern that guards and sustains the spark.

And this is the best tribute I can give to the gods for letting me spend the past fourtyfive years of my life in proximity with one of these creative human beings who is my wife and my best friend. Through my experience living with her I understand more about myself and about human existence than I could have, read a whole library on the subject. Love and admiration combined together turned out to be the best teacher in my case.

***

Thank you. Sending love, hope and peace :pray: :heart: :sparkle:

I don’t post on here a lot but I remember Vera Mont and will be missed.

RIP

Vera seemed sane. Not that I think everyone else on here is insane. Vera seemed like she could view a topic both from a distance and close up, perhaps.

Ohh, I just read this news now. What a sad message. Vera was a great contributor and seemed to me like a wonderful and wise person. She brought a unique voice to the forum. Rest in peace Vera.

My condolences, very sad to hear.

May you rest in peace.

So saddening! Rest in peace, Vera?I always enjoyed your wit, creativity and high, yet down to earth, intelligence.

I haven't visited these pages for a while, I'm saddened to learn of her passing, and echo the tributes above.

This news was 3 months ago, during which I was also gone from the forum. So I'm just now posting this.
So sad to find out she had passed away. She was a very solid contributor to this forum.
RIP Vera.