And Finally, A Good News Story...

Sometimes Kelly, who is a devoted follower of my blog, says that my stories depress her with their crushing sorrow. Too true; I lay my heart bare quite often and I invite you into that scary place. Nevertheless, as I am in a state of pain today I thought it might be good for me if I told you a happy story.

I have written about Tracy before. You will find stories on my blog about my childhood friend who was murdered. (A note to file: I will really have to ask Corey how to link back for your convenience!)

In a strange twist of fate, one of my blog entries found their way into the heart of a young woman who grew up in Tracy’s neighbourhood. Indeed, her mother was pregnant with her when Tracy was murdered. The remnant terror that Tracy’s killer wrought on many more innocent victims, such as my new online friend and her mother, was palpable in her originating message to me. It is fair to say that many people grew up in the sinister shadow of Tracy’s death.

So, we begin an online friendship, sharing preliminary information about each other and with me struggling to explain Tracy to her. We make an immediate connection at a level that comes directly from the heart. We start to talk like we have known each other for a long time and in a place that shares through healing.

I’m explaining to my sister, Joanne, about this new friendship. Of course, Joanne is a teacher and is well versed in how the internet can be used for nefarious means. She asks me how I will know that this faceless person is not the murderer disguised as an online friend. Fair enough. I assure Joanne that I have enough details to check out the person and verify her identify. I tell Joanne that, although I treasure her “caredness” toward me, her big sister, I am mature enough to cross the cavern between internet fantasy and living reality.

And I find out through my online friend that her husband has the same concerns. What if I am the murderer and I’m trying to wipe out anyone’s memories so I am never caught out? Worse still, what if I am stalking a new victim? Fair enough, I understand that concern since my sister has the same caution.

We both appreciated the people in our lives that have our safety at heart and we love them more for it. However, we had already built a climate of trust and sharing that gently rebuffs but ultimately transcends their cynicism about reaching out to a stranger on the internet.

My cyber friend delivers me a precious gift; one that she could not have known would open a door of understanding into my world. I was telling her about how my life turned around in a very painful year of high school when I turned against my “loser crowd” and spend countless lonely moments in a place of not belonging. She makes the connection – undetected by me in over thirty years – that my life fundamentally changed in the school year right after Tracy was murdered! I now had fresh understanding of why Tracy’s death was monumental in my life. It was not merely about the tragedy over losing a friend, it was about how that heartbreak wove strands through my life, a life that very well could have dwelled in the neverland of losers.

In the far reaches of my heart, I always yearned to fill the need to honour Tracy.

I could have been one of the rabbles. Because of Tracy, I was now one of the riches. I owed Tracy that. And my online friend delivered me that unpanned gold. She made that connection.
Had we listened to our well-intentioned cynics in our world, I would never have been given this gift.

More important, Tracy’s life would never have been celebrated for what she meant to the future of friends and strangers, unborn at the time she was taken from our lives. Who knows what I might have been like had I not made the switch from loser to winner in the year of Tracy’s death? Perhaps the world might not have been graced by the “products of my success”; my relationship with my husband, my children, my friends.

And my new Tracy-friend holds her children a little tighter because she grew up in the missing-Tracy world. And her children are more treasured for that empty space; they know a love that is borne of a tragedy and delivered from a grace. And her husband is a presence in my friend's world that Tracy would never know, and so my friend holds her husband in her heart with a Tracy love. A Tracy kind of love.

I know Tracy would be proud. When next I meet with my new cyber friend, Tracy will be sitting in our presence. Tracy loved people. And she would love this story.

This has taught me that we cannot shy away from strangers. We can be wary; we can be vigilant. Those are good things. But if we are too careful, we will miss the gold that comes our way. Thank you for the gold, my new friend. Tracy is gone, but you are not. The riches of the friendship I may have mined through Tracy live on through your grace.

And through the grace that Tracy left in my life. And through the grace of Tracy that will never die.