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How can someone you’ve never been face to face with
matter so much? I know this sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But that’s today’s reality,
living with the internet connections we all make.

I see this all the time on Facebook. And if you
inhabit the Facebook world, I have no doubt you’ve seen it too. People sharing
their grief and worries about a loved one who passed on or someone they care
about in trauma. And the responses from strangers and internet friends are
overwhelming.

As an author, my job is to get ‘out there’ and
mingle with the readers as much as possible. While doing so, I’ve met such
wonderful, warm-hearted, loving people. A lot of them are authors, like me, who’ve
made creating stories a career.

One lady, Katy, an author from England who I’ve never met
but felt a kinship with for years wrote recently to say that her husband was in
the Cardiac Unit of their hospital and to pray for him because he was critical.

It’s though our e-mails that we’ve become close—like
pen pals of old. And I know a little bit about her personal life and her relationships
with her family. As I mentioned, I’ve never seen her in person nor have I met her
husband. Yet ever since learning about his fate, I’ve been
walking around with a heavy heart, prayers ringing in my mind and sending loving thought her way. I think how
sad that I can’t visualize the man, and yet in a strange way, it hasn’t stopped
my concern.

I wonder if these personal connections are what will
make the world a better place one day. Being able to care about others who you’ve
only bonded with through the medium of words…!!