Memory Leak

On 2006 June 20 Liz’s funeral was held. I tried to arrive as early as I could, but I got lost a few times while driving there, so quite a few people had already arrived before I had. I met Liz’s siblings on the corner outside the church, along with Liz’s best friend. They were hiding from the tear-inducing crowd in the basement; I wanted to do the same, but I felt like I should talk to everyone and see where I could help. I was glad to see so many people come and show support for the family. Right up until the end, I managed to keep myself distracted by talking with everyone else and thinking of others, but as the service was ending, I broke down in one of my friend’s arms. It was so hard, and still is, coming to terms with this loss.

After the service, I went to the Juhasz house and spent some time with the family. I ended up going out to a diner with the siblings and best friend to get some ice cream, but it was too late for me to drive home by the time I got back. Due to that, I spent the night at the Juhasz house at the invitation of her parents. The only spot to sleep in, however, was Liz’s bed in the basement. Most people groan when I mention this to them, presumably because they think it would make me feel bad, but in reality, it was somewhat comforting. Having so many of her possessions so close to me actually helped me feel a little better.

The next morning, I woke and got ready to visit the burial site. It was a much smaller ceremony since it wasn’t as widely advertised and took place quite far from the church. I broke down again, after the small speech at the burial, but not quite as severely as the night before. Afterwards, a luncheon was held at a nearby banquet hall. It was uneventful, after which I went back to the Juhasz house. At this point, my parents, who hadn’t seen me in 48 hours, were worried, so I got in contact with them and let them know I was alright and would be coming home that night. After arriving at the Juhasz house and helping them finish off some of the massive amount of food they received from friends, I proceeded home.

I’ve spent much of my time since then putting together everything I can find about Liz. What I’ve collected so far can be found at my Elizabeth Juhasz page. Most of my work has been asking for pictures of her from friends and family, but I have also collected some documents. I have a few audio files, but I’m waiting on permission to release them before I put them online.

Plans are being made to make a trip to the burial site on her birthday. Only after her father mentioned it to me did I realize that this would have marked her 21st birthday; he plans on bringing up a bottle and knocking it back in her honor. I’m aware that 21 is just a number, but the meaning of that age saddens me: Liz had been looking forward to reaching the age of independence so much.

All of us have heard it: you only appreciate something the most after you’ve lost it. In my case, I have only now felt how important someone is to me, now that they have died. We were so close that, even though we weren’t related by blood, we shared our lives like we were. I learned all of her innermost secrets and desires, and tried to help her with anything within my power to do so. I love you so much, Elizabeth Juhasz, and I miss you. Rest in peace.

A default install of Ubuntu 5.06 might come up with these errors when compiling glibc 2.4:

It turns out that mawk, the AWK interpreter that comes installed on Ubuntu by default, isn’t supported by glibc. To fix this, open up Synaptic (System, Administration, Synaptic Package Manager) and install the gawk package in the Interpreted Computer Languages section. Afterwards, you’ll need to reconfigure glibc before compiling it again so it knows to use gawk instead of mawk. As a side note, make sure you always use the latest release version of packages; trying to compile glibc 2.3.6 won’t work on Ubuntu 5.06.