Friends Never Leave You

I lost a friend last week and nearly lost another. The one who passed away was not a close friend, but I knew and admired her. The one who had a sudden emergency is one of my best friends. Both of them I met in the virtual world, Second Life. As I've written in this column before, that makes no difference to me. A friend is a friend no matter where you meet them, and when you find one, you are very lucky. It is not easy to find or keep friends in today's world with all our time limits, pressures, and other obligations. But friends are so important. They make a big difference in our lives.

Daisyblue Hefferman was a sweet and very talented lady who touched many lives. Her family knew what her virtual friends meant to her and contacted them when Daisy was taken ill with a serious stroke. When Daisy passed away, the community of librarians in Second Life mourned her with a special memorial service while her real life funeral was taking place, and many memorials were created to honor her in the place she contributed to with many innovative projects and which she loved so very much.

During the time Daisyblue was in the hospital and people were sending her get well messages and posting photos and videos of her work in Second Life to her Facebook page, Verde Otaared suffered a heart attack and had to have cardiac surgery to put stints in one of her arteries. Messages about her also appeared on Facebook. Fortunately, to everyone's relief, Verde pulled through and is currently making her recovery.

I learned a few lessons from this and also from my hospitalization last year for sudden severe asthma attacks. First, I saw the strength of the library community in Second Life, and this was far from a surprise. As someone commented during Daisy's ordeal, librarians are great people, but the librarians in Second Life are especially so. I also learned that things we take for granted such as our health and sometimes our friends, often our family, need to be our priorities in life. So many of us worry about such little things, although at the time they seem of major importance. When things like this happen, it opens your eyes. Lastly, I learned that friends never leave you even if they pass away. They stay with you as the fond memories you shared and live in your heart the rest of your life. That's the power of friendship, the miracle of the bond people can share whether it's for a short or long time, whether it's purely online, in a virtual world, or in real life. It's something you can't ever lose and something that needs to be treasured.

I was very touched when I attended Daisyblue's memorial and visited Heartsease Gardens where Daisy's plaque was added to those members of the SL library community who have also passed on. What a wonderful way to keep these friends close to us, as if they would ever leave.