Internet Sites and the Small World

Katie Coles is an old college roomie of my cousin, Anne. I vaguely recall meeting her when I first went away to college myself. Both Katie and my cousin are just enough older than I am that at the time we weren’t quite peers. She and Anne have kept up over the years and distance. My cousin was always better than I have ever been about staying connected with friends and family, but it speaks to the kind of person she is. She is glue. One of those who holds people close and keeps them near and connected not only to herself but to others.

It’s interesting who you find on the Internet. Since becoming a Facebook addict my husband, Rob, has discovered all sorts of old friends and acquaintances from high school and university. I haven’t found many people I know on Facebook but on the Classmates site, I saw a few people I know. I signed up there because my 25 year high school reunion is coming up and I wanted to track down contact information for some of my friends. As it turns out the best source of information was simply calling my friend Julie who, incidentally, is also a distant cousin of mine. I lost track of so many people when Will was sick and until now hadn’t made moves to reconnect though I had thought about them and doing that often. Having found them, I don’t do much with the Classmates site anymore, so I was a bit surprised to get an email telling me that someone had left a message for me there. It turned out to be Katie Coles.

From:
Katie
To:
Annie
Sent:
September 27, 2007 01:27:53 AM
Subject:
Hi, this is Katie, Anne Kenney's college roomie


Hello. I was poking around seeing who's new on the U of I listing and your name was familiar. I visited Anne in CR for a couple of weeks this summer. In fact, I went with her and Betty to pick up your mom at the airport from your wedding. I saw the pics you sent by e-mail and Anne and I "oooed" and "aaaahhhed" over them quite a bit. You are so lovely!

Anyway, although I only know you vicariously through Anne, I am compelled to say that I think you are wonderfully brave to follow your heart with a good man and I wish all the best for you, your daughter and your husband.

Katie

I am continually amazed by the effect that Rob and I seem to have on people that we don’t really know or who don’t know us except through family or friends or just from randomly hearing about our story. My dear friend Meg’s 89 year old mother is an avid follower of ours and through her a whole host of elderly friends in one of Des Moines’s senior homes is keep abreast of us as though we were an afternoon soap opera. I am also quite amazed by the way people seem to pick up on our love for each other merely through the pictures I have posted or sent to those I know. It’s not validation really and I personally don’t need that anyway. I don’t live my life by committee anymore. What other people think, as my mother always told me, is none of my business, but it is a nice feeling knowing that by just being “us”, following our hearts and living our lives, that we have touched people in a positive way. I am not sure I could have said that about my life ten or fifteen years ago. A late bloomer, I guess.

I was telling my mother about Katie’s message today, and she told me that Katie hasn’t been well. She has a very hard time getting around. Arthritis or something similar is robbing her of her mobility, but still she made the drive from Arizona to Iowa with her kids in tow to spend a few weeks with an old friend. There are so many things in life that we think of as being very important when the truth is that there are only a few things in life that merit such status. Friends are one of them.