True Friends,...Never Met

"How can you call these people your friends?? They may not even be who they say they are!!" My husband snorts in exasperation. I don't know what HE does online, but I make friends. I have friends in the Philippines, the UK (both England and Scotland), way off in Alberta Canada....and Texas even !! lol. Some of them I've been close to for nearly four years...and others have come along more recently. I collect such friends like pearls on an add-a-pearl necklace. Some I've met through my blogs-commentators-and others through forums (I always wonder if I'm supposed to call that plural , "forii" lol), Some through social venues such as SparkPeople.com or Jango or Facebook....but often our relationship will begin at one site....and then bleed into others and finally into chats. And with some, it has even crossed over into phone conversation...or web cam chat.

Regardless of my husband's opinion of the possibility of such a thing: I KNOW these people. I walk with them through blow-by-blow accounts of their daily lives; hear their commentary on various subjects; struggle with them through their struggles; and even know what they ate all day long and how much they weigh! When you live so intimately with someone for months and years on end, you can say---with some degree of security: I KNOW WHO THEY ARE.
I can predict how they will respond to various remarks by myself or others; I appreciate their individual senses of humor; I know their needs and hardships.

It fascinates me how my life --as is true of most of us--has changed in just the last ten to fifteen years. When I was in college I could never have believed in such a thing. In fact, I recall my incredulousness when I first heard of the odd phenomenon known as "the internet." "You mean I can type a document...and someone in the next state can have it instantly??? There's not even any PAPER that has to exchange hands???" I recall trying with my 20th century mind, to wrap it around this 21st century concept....and failing miserably. When the person went on to tell me that soon it would be in every house and that almost all business would be conducted through it, they left me completely lying in the dust.

It was the same disbelief with which I greeted microwave cooking. Heating? Without HEAT?? And you have to give it more time, to go along with greater mass?? But WHY?? Surely if one cooking time is good for one item, the same time should be good for two! My conventional oven-bound mind could not grasp such an odd thing. And the food gets hot, but the plate doesn't??? How can that be???

But yeah...now my friends, five to one, are mostly from this strange "place"--the internet...Vaporous and mysterious.....it connects me with solid, real personalities, the globe over. My world has simultaneously shrunk and expanded. And my heart has made room for these people whom I most likely will never meet in this lifetime. And that makes me sad.

Already my closest online friend has passed away...almost WHILE TALKING TO ME...as we said our last goodbye, and he collapsed in front of his computer, his brother later finding him unconscious on the floor by his desk. I saved that last conversation. His last words....In printed form in my hands...Kept for any posterity that should care...and mostly kept so that when sadness grips my heart at the loss of him, I can pull it out and read it once more. Rest in Peace, David, My Friend. And this loss, I have mourned as intensely as any other death....although I could not attend the funeral. I knew intimately every person who attended, having heard descriptions of each relative and tales of their personalities and interactions with my friend...I was there in spirit friend. And I still think sadly of you every single day.

YOU just don't get intimacy with people in your "real" world like this. With the people in my tangible world, we meet and greet at church,and they get into their car and drive to their home, shut the door behind them....and the rest of their life is a mystery to me. They may be wife beaters for all I know...or engage in some secretive illegal behavior...and I would not know. There is no security in tangibility or in personal knowledge.

However, my online friends write their thoughts....their struggles and we celebrate each other's victories....It is MUCH harder to hide here. True, predators can lurk and nab innocent children and teens behind false personae. However, i know for a fact, that my friends are who they say they are. I have their whole lives spread out in their photos, their opinions on every topic and their night time quiet tears....all here on my monitor. A person would have to be a genius of the Stephen King variety to invent such an elaborate ruse....And what for??? It's not like I'm planning on leaving them my extensive fortune at my passing! it's not like I'm planning on leaving my husband to run away with any of them!

But what a marvelous moment it will be in God's Kingdom, after this life is over, to have someone walk up to me. Someone that I will immediately know....And I get the first opportunity to hold these sisters and brothers from foreign lands in my arms. I know that in that moment, many tears will fall. Tears of joy.

Thank you David Gates. For as little as I may think of you in some regards, you have given us all an inestimable gift. The gift of company on a zillion sleepless nights. The gift of friendship.