from the May 2003 Heinlein Society Newsletter

Science fiction author and long-time friend of Robert and Virginia Heinlein was asked to comment on the loss of Ginny for the Heinlein Society Newsletter

Today a total stranger on the other side of the continent phoned while I was out to tell me that he’d been camped out at the hospital for the last few weeks, and wanted me to know that Ginny had mentioned my wife and me several times with great fondness. Probably as well the machine got it. My response was to burst into tears.

She was the toughest, smartest, fiercest, KINDEST woman I’ve ever known. I only met her face to face twice in my life, never set foot inside any of her homes (although my wife was luckier; Ginny once brought her home to the Carmel place, and showed her Robert’s word processor, and the famous cannon); we knew each other by mail, phone and e-mail. But I’ll never forget her, and I miss her already. I can’t decide whether I prefer to picture her and Robert ice-skating together again, like they used to — or at the rail of another cruise ship, about to “Sail Beyond the Sunset” — or reunited and crowned at the head of the Grand Parade, about to resume Traveling in Elephants.

One of those.

Spider Robinson