Here's to Facebook

People move away.  Sometimes several states away.  Its difficult to stay in touch.  With friends or family.  A phone call.  A letter.  Maybe an email.  We all do what we can, but sometimes the distance between can stretch too far.  You forget to return a call.  You miss a birthday.  A birth even.  You feel guilty and the guilt, ironically, keeps you from correcting a mistake.  Sometimes you get a second chance.  And sometimes you even feel guilty about not having made the effort yourself for that second chance and even that will keep you from making a new connection.  What's worse, the stronger the connection originally, the deeper the friendship, the stronger the guilt that keeps you from just admitting a mistake and taking what you can, when it comes.  Perhaps that's the greatest part of Facebook:  the mechanics for both reconnecting and maintenance are already in place.  Just plug in. For so long I had been one of its leading detractors.  Write a letter, make a call, I would say.  All the while never getting around to it.  Thinking, mistakenly, that great friends lost for too long deserved a grand antique gesture in order to adequately address the error of having let them go.  In the end it was simple.  I accepted a friend request.  No letter, no apologies.  Just a small electronic nod, and a wordless invitation to see their life.  And to observe that life.  Here we are, here's what we're up to.  No worries.  A few comments, a couple "likes" on a post.  And then a moment arrives when you feel comfortable enough to try again.

A lifetime ago, i met a man.  A boy, actually.  So was I, then.  And then he met a girl.  And it was a summer.  We were all seventeen, and in spite of the true joy of having no real responsibility, everything about that summer felt massive and final.  And momentous.  You were all seventeen; you remember.  Lost track after that for years.  Somehow I found them again.  They were together.  Happily.  We had some responsibility then, but still had the freedom to practice being adults without having to commit to anything real.  And then they did commit.  To each other.  And I was asked to stand up for them and speak at their wedding.  Still one of the greatest honors I've ever been given.  And then I met a girl.  And when we committed, my friends returned the favor at our wedding.  We stayed in touch after that.  For a while.  They moved, we visited.  And then...nothing.  I don't know how or why, but that was it.  For a long time.  They moved, maybe.  Back home from out west.  Maybe.  Too many years passed with too much guilt.  I didn't know.  Enter Facebook.

They found my wife first.  I wasn't on Facebook, so she would give me small updates.  They had moved, matriculated.  Then they had kids.  That's what got me.  I could stand having missed a move, a degree or two.  But somehow, the idea of their starting a family was more than i could bear.  I still wasn't sure what to say or how to say it.  Turns out a shared love for bourbon and a ridiculous bottle-sweater was all it took.  That and good timing.  We were just about to go home, which was just a short drive from their new home, new life.  So we went.

Just a day.  Half a day, really.  No one deserves 60 degrees in January, but we got it.  All that we may wish for our friends or family, in this life or the next, is happiness.  A contentment.  Peace, security, fulfillment. A beautiful home with a porch, a garage, and slow traffic going by.  And healthy, glorious, magical, curious, delightful children.  One would be a miracle; they had two.  Should I live a thousand years, it would be a full life were I to be such a host for anyone else.  A meal, a bed, a bottle of booze and chance to get to know them and their family.  Again and for the first time.

Yeah, there's silly pop-up ads in the margins.  And yes, there will never be an electronic substitute for the sound of a child's genuine laugh or feeling the weight of an envelope upon which a loved one has written your name with a pen with their own hand.  But friends, I am saying that without this wonderful invention, the above moment might never have come about.  Here's to Facebook, and all the new friends we might get to know.