Cyber Friendships

For the past 20 months I have been a part of a group of 20 women who make and sell crafts on the internet. These women range in ages from 30 to 60 and live in all parts of the country. Over time some girls have left the group and new members have been added. I’ve read about their vacations, new jobs, marital problems, loss of parents, illnesses, anniversaries, record sales, weight loss, weight gain, moving to new houses and a host of other things you experience as you do life together. Through pictures I’ve watched their kids grow up, some graduate from college, some get engaged, etc. We fight, we cry, we laugh. We share product tips, techniques & always let each others know when a store is having a great sale on supplies. Just like a real life group of friends.

Kathy Potter is one of the girls in my group. She lives in Maryland and has a husband and 10 year old daughter. She is one of the sweetest girls in the group…always positive, encouraging and a wonderful artist. She loves gardening and making crafts with her daughter Marina. We found out in June that Kathy was just diagnosed with cancer. She decided to put selling on hold in order to go through treatments and spend time with her family. Every couple of weeks one of us would call to let her know we missed her and were thinking of her. We knew her participation in the group would be less frequent if at all, but she was still very much a part of us. One day another girl, Jeri, came up with this great idea to help Kathy with getting caught up on her own personal scrapbook pages. We all made some layouts and sent them to Jeri. Jeri packaged them up and sent them to Kathy’s house.

Kathy never got that package. We found out last night that she passed away a few weeks ago at the tender age of 40. Her husband got the box the other day in the mail and went through each and every layout with Marina. Then he decided to send an email to the group to let us know the bad news. Though I was really shocked that cancer consumed Kathy’s life so quickly, I was surprisingly composed while reading the email from her husband. Well...until I got to the bottom of the message where precious Marina added a PS to the letter. In her sweet messy 10 year old typing, she told us she loved the pages and that she was doing better in school and how she was going to continue on in crafting just like her Mommy. And that is all I can write at this moment. Kathy Potter, you are deeply missed. Derek and Marina, you are always in my prayers.