Remembering Marie

I met my friend, Marie, online in 1999. She was a member of iVillage's Sharing Love & Prayers board. In time, she became a community leader of SLP. Her name there was "Hugbearu2" and she had an arsenol of cyberhugs for one and all. She had an''addiction' to teddy bears, which prompted me to add the teddy bear images on these pages.

When I was new to computing in 1999, I didn't want to give out my real name.

Marie asked me what my real name was and I explained to her that I would rather not say and gave her the reason why. She then told me that she had always loved the name "Angela" and asked if it would be okay if she called me that. From that day forward, I became Marie's Angela. I never did tell her what my actual name was - not because I didn't want to, but because I never thought to.

I've met many people during my years of being on the 'Net, but none that I have continued staying in contact with. I guess friendships come and friendships go, but for Marie and myself, it was different.

Marie and I exchanged snail mail addresses, as well as phone numbers. I sent cards and a few letters and even a "care package" once and Marie recipicated by sending ecards and email to me on an almost every day basis.

As her health began to fail, her emails began to dwindle to mostly forwards that she had received from other people online. There was still the occasional ecard and in the past few months, she sent newsletters to all her online friends. (She had many friends!)

Marie persevered throughout her foot, leg and eye problems due to diabetes. She had also had some major heart issues. She refused to let her friends down and so she kept up the correspondence as best she could.

In March 2008, Marie earned her wings and she flew Home to join the rest of God's angels. Her passing left a gaping hole within my heart. I will always miss her until we meet again.