The Other Side of a Pen Name

I have a friend, yes a friend, whom I know only by her pen name. She lives a couple of miles away from me. She has edited two of my stories and helped with others. She is one of the founding members of my writers' chapter. When I first met her, her husband drove her to meetings, so I knew him as well. After my husband died, she came across the room at a book signing to give me a hug that I didn't even know I needed.
Last week she emailed me saying her husband had died. You can't look up obituaries under the spouse's pen name. I identified it because I recognized the photograph. I notified our mutual writing friends, others who knew her pen name, and we managed a small contingent at the funeral. Three of us sat together in the pew in honor of a family with one name, while everyone else was there to honor a family with an entirely different name.