When Your Friend Goes Missing

One of the benefits of being a blogger is the friendships you develop over time. I don’t think most of us expect this when we first start blogging. Another thing you might not expect when you first start blogging or join a health community is how sad you will feel when a friend you have never met in person, never had the chance to hug, but feel like you have, goes missing. Your friendship has developed over Twitter, Facebook, long email chats, texts, and phone conversations for several years and when that friend is missing from your daily life, you feel lost. Do you allow them their privacy or text, email, social media the heck out of them until you know things are okay?  Do you wait it out or start thinking of any connection you can to this friend's "real" life?

I did a bit of both. When my good friend Lene from The Seated View became sick and shared on social media that she was being admitted to the hospital, I sent her a few text messages. I got a very short one back the first day or two she was in the hospital which let me know she had read my text.  But when I didn’t hear anything else for several days, I started panicking. The not knowing was making me crazy and I began the search for people in her "real" life. Luckily, I found the email of “The Boy”, as Lene likes to call her long time partner. Fortunately for me, he is a very caring person and emailed me back quickly with an update and continued to do so until she was good to go on her own. In the meantime, Lene's sister also posted on Facebook, which I know was very comforting for a lot of us.

Many of us in the blogger community are in the same situation. We have never met in person the people who have become our life long friends. What do we do when they go missing?  Should we have a contact list we give to those we become close with just in case?  What do we do?  Have you run into this same issue? The good news is that Lene is back home and on her way to recovery.  She now has my husband's email and phone number, just in case.   

Blogging is a way for many of us to work out what is happening to our bodies. We share with others but often get so much back in return.  Sometimes those we meet online become the most special people to us. Lene is that someone to me.