FACEBOOK -

If you have the time, Facebook can be fun to keep in touch, share photos, and new things.
I have kept in touch with my family, (I still use the phone, mostly), with past parishioners, relatives and friends. Over the weekend, I received a friend request from someone from elementary school! In my hometown, we went to school together from K-8th grade, at least public school. So, we knew each other for a good long time and most of us went to the same HS together, although, we took different classes and got involved in different activities and eventually by the time we graduated and went onto to college we lost touch. Sometimes, new kids who moved into town, joined our classes in grade school. This friend was one of those. It was special to remember her and several of us who hung out together and played together.
Which got me to thinking about my best friend in HS. We lost touch many years ago. She landed in Kansas and I in OH. I always wrote her a Christmas card but then lost her address. She hadn't always returned the Christmas card with one of her own.
We met on the very first day of HS in the Cafeteria. She lived in the town next to mine. She was cute, with long, straight blond hair and bangs, and blue eyes. Her favorite dress was blue jeans. We discovered a common like of grape-nuts and John Denver. We didn't have all that many classes together after Sophomore year, but in Junior year, we were in German 3 together and took Independent Reading - which meant we goofed off most of the year, did reading which we both were pretty good at and pulled off A's.
K graduated and got married either during college or right after HS. I went to her wedding in a small country church in IN. I think it was right after graduation from HS. She went off to Kansas, had three kids, eventually divorced. Met someone new, got married and had three more kids. she worked in a lab. She was smart, down to earth, and had a good sense of humor.
I got married much later after gradschool (Seminary) and never had children, much to our disappointment. I lived in a suburb of a metropolitan area and she lived in the country. But I always remembered her.
Thinking that Facebook is such a great connector, I tried looking her up oon it, knowing it had been 18-20 years since we heard from each other. How neat it would be to catch up and reconnect.
I was lead to a site of obituaries and there was K. She died 10 years ago at the age of 40, just a month before my birthday and the just before we found out that my Dad was terminally ill. I was crushed, saddened, and grieving for her, her children, and not being able to reconnect afterall. Her memorial contributions went to the American Cancer Society, so I am thinking she had cancer and I never knew. I will forever remember her face and the long, straight blond hair and sparkling blue eyes and the friendship we shared at the most important time of our growing up years.
And our reunion will have to wait until I leave this life and join in the saints in light and see K once again.