Farewell, My Friend

This new, online world where so many of us have choosen to spend time is often criticized as the place for scammers, pedophiles and dangerous encounters. Yet, as a microcosm of the real world, it is also the place for knowledge, information, and comraderie.

In 1997, while dealing with my new status as a single mom, working two jobs and fighting to make a new life for myself and my children, I joined AOL, and after stumbling around for a while in chat rooms more interested in "cyber" than comraderie, I found a group inhabiting a place called the Writer's Cafe. I entered a world of diverse personalities and conversations that were many levels above "hey, baby, what are you wearing." The place had its share of heated debates about the world, and yes, even on occasion, about writing. Less a workshop and more an escape hatch, the "cafe" became to me the place for stream of consciousness discussions with writers and others, who, like me, were taking a break from the day-to-day.

In this cafe, I have met, both virtually and in-person, a wide range of people that I would never have had the chance to meet in my regular day-to-day routine. I've seen photos and read stories of places I will never get to visit. Quite a few stories, poems and other writing has come out things I learned or people I met because of stopping by at the Writer's Cafe.

And, like any far-reaching group, we have had our share of joy and sorrow. Marriages, births, and deaths. Losing a fellow "cafer" is a painful experience - for even though these are people living far from us, people we may never have met, our online chatroom has provided many of us with the chance to share our common experiences, find kindred souls, and to, for a time, maybe to feel part of a dynamic, living experience.

This morning, our dear friend, known in the cafe as SkaWrites, died, surrounded in person by those who loved her, and embraced, spiritually, by her host of online friends. Ska and I both wrote similar "slice of life" columns, hers more focused on family, mine more often than not, about rodents. We shared our work with each other and had some heart to heart chats late at night about the issues of life faced by women such as ourselves.

I know that while her light has left us, it now burns brightly in another place - a place filled with family, friends and the other "cafers" who had gone on ahead of her.

Ska, dear friend, we will always leave a seat open for you in the cafe, and a cup of coffee brewing in your name.