I don't know what to say

I was cleaning up my Yahoo home page tonight, going through old bookmarks on there, etc... and found a message board I used to hang out at. I went there to see if it was even still up. To my surprise I saw that there were people still posting that I used to know (it was a private message board created just for us, after we got tired of the WB Friends message board site). Anyway, more about that in a few minutes. I went to a thread and clicked on an unavailable link. I kept reading the replies cause I saw that people were shocked at whatever it was about. Finally after looking at the title of the link, and a comment someone made, I slowly, unbelievingly put it together, as much as I didn't want to. All it took was one name. Here is the article. Read it.

I'll try to put it all together for you here. Many years ago, 1999 or so I met this girl named Sam Spady online through a "Friends" (tv show) message board. I met lots of other people. In fact, most everyone on the board spent a lot of time there and we all became pretty close. However, there was a smaller group of us: Chris, Lisa Marie, Elise, Lisa (in London), Josh, Sam, and myself. We spent many many hours on aim with each other and in chat rooms, playing silly game. This continued for years. In fact, I my friends, Chris and Lisa Marie recently got engaged. They met online. Ended up going to the same university, etc... I still talk to Josh on an almost daily basis. Occassionally I talk to Elise and rarely the other Lisa.

Sam Spady was a cool girl. I spent time getting to know her after the rest of us kind of faded out. Oddly enough, I thought about her a few weeks or so ago. We think we had a mutual friend from Colorado State (where she went to school). He was a Vista in San Jose. I remember talking to her after I moved out here and there was even talk of a visit to Monterey with her friend that knew my Vista friend (also a Sam, in the male form). They didn't know each other really. Just through a friend. But still makes for a small world. I know I talked to her over the summer and perhaps after she was back at school. She was from Nebraska and like living in Colorado so much better. I think the last time I talked to her she had recently wrecked her SUV pretty bad (not her fault I dont' think).

Anyway, I'm going on and on. Maybe I'll talk more about the message board stuff another time. She the 2nd member of our gang to pass away (that we know of). It's just weird to think of someone you don't know, as in never met, having such an impact on your life. Like, when I read this, I was like everyone else who replied and said they didn't want to finish reading it, in hopes it wouldn't be true. I've never really had a "friend" die, or a good friend at least. People I know my age have died, but no one I really had a relationship with, or spent time talking to, getting to know, etc...And oddly enough, this feels worse than that. This feels like an actual friend just died. It feels that way because she was an actual friend. Sure, I never met her, and didn't keep in regular contact with, but I have lots of friends I don't keep in regular contact with, or have even seen for a while for that matter. I mean, my friend Josh from Conn., if something happend to him (as much as he annoys me sometimes) I would be seriously distraught. And the same with any of the rest of the group, especially the smaller group that Sam and I were a part of.

obit.