Grieving for an online friend

[wetmanjf 2,787]

Written for another forum but also posted here.

The internet is a strange place. You often make connections and become great friends with people you will probably never meet in your lifetime. And when it comes to XXX rated forums etc it is a much stranger journey. Over the years I have made many good friends online. Many lived far away. I have had the pleasure of meeting a couple of them in person. Most, sadly I will probably never meet yet I feel we have a very close connection. Kevin was this type of friend. We met well over a year or more ago on a online forum to which I belong. He was very active and soon we started talking about our shared fetish as well as life in general. I think Kevin was the kind of person that never disliked anyone. Their were times that maybe he didn't know exactly how to express what he was thinking but you could always figure him out. He spent a lot of time on the forum...and everyone knew him. We shared a lot of good times...had a lot of laughs...and often spoke of the things we loved. One of the last things I remember was Kevin wishing me a Happy Birthday..That meant a lot to me. That was July 19th. On July 20th Kevin Vanished from the forum. At first I didn't worry..but after a week I became very concerned. I knew from our conversations that Kevin wasn't in the best of health. Still I thought that maybe he was having computer problems...or something came up and he had to go out of town unexpectedly. But the more time that past the more worried I became. Then yesterday...using what limited information I knew about my friend I went online looking for him. Before long I found him. His Obituary. He left this earth on Aug 3rd. I can only assume a sudden medical event caused his death. No way to know. No time for goodbyes. He leaves behind a legacy to all his friends. So how do you grieve for an online friend ? Someone you never met but they made an impression on your life. I guess you just have to keep their memory alive in your heart and treat people with the kindness that they did. Goodbye my friend...You will never be forgotten. John

[Pete2304 36]

It's utterly crap mate. I've been in exactly the same boat with a friend I met on a different site. We got to know each other through shared interests (football mainly) before it became apparent that in fact, we were both undergoing chemotherapy at the time.

We spoke and I hope, certainly in my case it helped, that some of the late night chats about nothing at all was a bit of an escape for a while. I got lucky and in the end recovered (touch wood) but after not hearing from my friend for a couple of weeks I got a message to say he had passed away. I was still having treatement at the time and it hit me like a ton of bricks but I couldn't even tell anyone in person because how do you explain that. I had tears in my eyes when I found out but couldn't even tell my other half at the time because she wouldn't have understood that I had been chatting on the site for company in the early hours when things seem at their worst and nothing else.

There is a lot more to everyone than just a fetish and when you get to know someone outside of that, you do see them as a friend even if you will in all likelihood never meet them in person.