Months ago while checking emails, I came across another pitch from Classmates.com. They were offering me to try out their Gold plan on a temporary basis cheaply. If you are unfamiliar with this website, it's mission is to reunite old friends, classmates, etc. Registration is free and visitors can browse and/or setup their own profile, but that's about all you can do. Unless you upgrade! You had to know it was coming.

Now mind you, it has been a long time since high school for me. So figuring out whom to search for was tough and mildly disappointing I soon found. It will help if I explain that I was born and raised (nearly 16 years) in Southern California and the remainder in the Pacific Northwest. Because of two moves practically back to back, I attended three schools throughout four years of high school. One school was merely for several months.

Surprising how many last names one cannot remember after 30 years of cramming useless knowledge into our brains day after day. Each friend’s name that I was fortunate enough to remember wasn't registered. It almost seemed that in 2006, not one person I had known in school was online. Strange to me too! I tried thinking creatively, friends of friend's names? Maybe siblings or cousins? Hour upon hour searching and striking out alot.

Pretty soon though a bit of luck came my way. Remembering a best friend I had through several years of school including Freshman/Sophomore years. This particular friend also had sisters! I looked up each of their names since they had attended the same high school at different years! A stroke of good fortune finally, one sister was registered.
Quicker than you can imagine I sent a message reminding my friend's sister of my name (then) and who I was many years ago - hoping to spark a memory. I inquired about her sister and included my phone number and email to contact me. Conveying a wish to renew my old friendship with her sister, lost due to my long distance move.

I wasn't able to keep in touch with anyone after leaving California. And here was possibly an opportunity to reconnect with someone who had been a close friend. I checked my email regularly and the Classmates website periodically to see if any messages had been updated. To my disbelief, there were no replies from the few people I was lucky to find after several searches. Months went by with nothing. Needless to say, when the temporary offer at Classmates.com ran out, I didn't renew. I hadn't gotten anything out of it but wasted effort and let down.

Until today, I had completely forgotten about the experience and minor disappointment. My hope to renew relationships with old friends. The chance to apologize if any are necessary and to thank those who were positive influences or mentors, etc. Today it happened, I reconnected with my friend's sister whom I had messaged several month's before.

Asleep in bed and my cell phone rings, waking me immediately. Being a parent, I am always worried something is wrong with my daughter. Despite her being an adult - I will always worry. When I sleepily answered, an unfamiliar voice was saying my name and identifying herself. As the realization came to my logy brain, I was shocked but elated. Rose was calling to say she had received my message at Classmates.com.

She remembered who I was and decided to call as well as email me regarding her younger sister, Donna. I got so excited as we chatted along happily, catching up. It has been 31 years since the last time I had spoken to Rose. Such a wonderful way to be awoken from a deep sleep. And then she broke the tragic news that Donna, my best friend long ago, had died in a car accident over a decade before. My hope to know Donna again, stolen away long before there was ever any possibility.

Hard blow! Not just to me but to Rose as well because once more she must explain her sister's death to someone else. Donna was 35 when she died, hadn't the chance to have kids yet, but apparently doted on her many nieces and nephews. Remained the shining bright, beautiful soul she was when we were teens. And loved abundantly by everyone she came in contact with. Although there were troubled times for my old friend, not unlike this author's history, Donna persevered her way through. God knows an Angel when he creates one and Donna must have been needed before the rest of us were ready to let her go. And seemingly strange enough, Donna sensed that she would die young from what I was told.

Even though I feel in my heart that Donna has gone to a better place, I will miss knowing my friend from childhood as an adult woman. The chance for our children and grandchildren to know one another. But especially to laugh at our old stories and silly times as adolescents. I will miss the trips that won't be taken to visit one another and renew old bonds. And long distance phone calls that won't be placed to share secrets and gossip as middle-aged women sometimes do. No successes or failures to share with each other as we read cards and letters written for posterity. Today is a day to mourn my old friend despite her death many years before. With thanks to the Internet and Rose, I have been allowed that possibility. Today, as I have many days before, I will remember Donna as my best friend who is lost or gone but never to be forgotten. She was and is a part of my life and history that shaped who I am today. I will thank God that I was lucky enough He put Donna there for the time He did. Rest in Peace my old friend. As those before us, we return to dust. Faith is the pathway and unwavering trust.

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