A Snowbird in Paradise

At The Digital Scrapbook Place, a website for scrapbookers who use their graphics programs to build family scrapbook pages, there was a sub-forum started "For All the Grandmas Out There". In two years the forum has grown to a large number of women; grandmothers, grandmothers-in-training, and some youngsters who have a LOT of years to wait for grandchildren. In almost 30 years on computers, 25 on the Internet, I have never been associated with a group that ran so smoothly. People disappear for a while, dealing with family issues and other "real life" but most come back. We care for each other honestly, celebrating births of children, acquisition of new pets, winning honors, and praying and crying over less happy issues.

We have celebrated with Carolyn (Caro) many times as she traveled from Australia to Texas to visit with her sweetheart, Donn. And we have celebrated with her when her dear Donn traveled to Australia to visit with her. We celebrated their devotion and love as it has been for 11 years.

Last month we prayed as Donn became ill during Caro's Holiday visit. It soon became evident that Donn was a lot more ill than most of us realized and many cried when Caro had to leave Donn in a coma assisted in breathing and other functions by machines. She knew she would never see him again. We waited for daily reports and agonized over distance that kept most of us from physically comforting her. Cards, prayers, even some flowers and plants poured in from over half a world away.

Now The Granny Forum is Caro's "soft place to land" as Dr. Phil would say. Donn is at peace, the memorials are over and our dear friend will soon be picking up the pieces. Any time, day or night, she can log on and find friends from somewhere in the world who will read whatever she feels like sharing with us. Even cyber-hugs can comfort. The tears we shed for Caro and Donn were real, the pain for our friend is real, and, fortunately, the prayers are real. We will be there for our friend as long as she wants us.