Has bad news from someone you consider a dear friend, but you’ve NEVER met, been distressing?

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How can someone you’ve never been face to face with matter so much? I know this sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But that’s today's reality, living with the internet connections we all make.
I see this all the time on Facebook. And if you inhabit the Facebook world, I have no doubt you’ve seen it too. People sharing their grief and worries about a loved one who passed on or someone they care about in trauma. And the responses from strangers and internet friends are overwhelming.
As an author, my job is to get ‘out there’ and mingle with the readers as much as possible. While doing so, I’ve met such wonderful, warm-hearted, loving people. A lot of them are authors, like me, who’ve made creating stories a career.
One lady, Katy, an author from England who I’ve never met but felt a kinship with for years wrote recently to say that her husband was in the Cardiac Unit of their hospital and to pray for him because he was critical.
It’s though our e-mails that we’ve become close—like pen pals of old. And I know a little bit about her personal life and her relationships with her family. As I mentioned, I’ve never seen her in person nor have I met her husband. Yet ever since learning about his fate, I’ve been walking around with a heavy heart, prayers ringing in my mind and sending loving thought her way. I think how sad that I can’t visualize the man, and yet in a strange way, it hasn’t stopped my concern.

I wonder if these personal connections are what will make the world a better place one day. Being able to care about others who you’ve only bonded with through the medium of words…!!