You see, I never met Mary Ellen; I only knew her through Suite101 where she was the Contributing Editor for Virtual Journeys. I knew her through discussion groups and the occasional e-mail, but never in the flesh if you will. We never even spoke by phone or chatted over the Internet.
I suppose that I could say in stock fashion at this point that though I never met Mary Ellen personally, I knew her all the same. After all, does not an author impart much of her fundamental nature through her writing?
Does not the soul shine through in the encouragement that two authors who admire each others' writings give to each other through discussion groups and e-mail?
I am not sure that the phenomenon is that simple.
With virtual friends, it is tempting to feel that we "cut to the chase." That though we may have never met and do not really experience each other's personalities, we get in exchange the powerful compensation of consciousness: The experience of the true essence of that person uncluttered with the actual day-to-day realities of living and idiosyncracies of personality.
Thus, we do not have to put up with that person's idiosyncrasies. For example, in my writing I never tell you about my little temper tantrums, my tendency to personalize the criticism of others or all the other myriad ways--positive and negative--in which I live my life and am all too human every day of my life.
While it is wonderful to experience that person in the abstract (so to speak)and while we may feel quite smugly that we know the true "essence" of that virtual friend, a human being is such a complex mixture of appearance, personality, mannerisms, intellect, emotion and spirit that surely the feeling that we truly know that person in the digital "aether" is truly a bit of an illusion.
This is not to denigrate the powerful effect of virtual relationships on soul, mind and behavior. I honor that power and even wrote an as yet unpublished novel on the phenomenon, And Love Must Follow.
Still, I feel that I must share some thoughts with you about my friend, Mary Ellen.
One time Mary Ellen answered an e-mail that I sent her in sympathy for her illness with a little story about the "Dorman women" (Dorman is her maiden name). She related that she was a fighter like all the Dormans and related the following little story about her 94-year old mother who was hospitalized with a broken femur near the time of Mary Ellen's diagnosis with cancer. I hope Mary Ellen does not mind my sharing this story with you.
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