Life online has usually been a magical playground for me since 1985, when I got my first manual dial modem. Over that quarter of a century I’ve been lucky enough to meet, and be befriended by, a lot of different people from all over. I met my wife online, and we managed to get together despite some of the barriers to communication that sometimes appear on line. I’ve known people who thought online life was so powerful that it ruined their marriage, though I’ve never seen it hurt a marriage that wasn’t already in trouble (even if one party didn’t know it yet.) I’ve even known one suicide, and run across more than one case of people desperate enough for attention to talk suicide just for the attention. But the one thing that hurts over and over again is that when a friend is hurting you can’t physically be there.

Sometimes you end up worrying about the darnedest people. One blogger/tweeter that I love to argue with (If I said the sky was blue she’d swear it was green and it was my conservative sun glasses that made it look blue) over time has given away chunks of herself time and again, so if you were paying attention it was impossible not to get to know something about her. Hitting that point I couldn’t deny that my frenemy was a decent human being who loves her family. (Darn it! It’s SO much easier when they’re cartoon demons!) When she became ill and required repeated surgeries I found myself worrying and praying. (Yeah, she’ll tell me that Christian faith is a delusion. Tough. She gets prayers anyhow.) I’m 3000 miles away so I can’t drop off dinner, or watch the kids, or otherwise inflict my presence on her. All I can do is pray, tell her what I learned as my family went through some of the same illnesses, and be there to fight with when she’s strong enough again.

Tonight, another friend is hurting. Her sister died today. She’s telling of her memories of her sister, what she was like, a bit about her kids, and even sharing pictures. I want to reach out and hug her so badly it physically hurts. But she’s more than 700 miles away. so all I can do is say a few words that aren’t enough, listen, and pray. Sometimes the magical Internet falls short of what you want. It’s frustrating, but I’d rather be frustrated than give it up.

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