A few weeks ago, I was thinking of a woman I was friends with back when I was pregnant with my daughter. This woman was my neighbor, my best friend and someone I could count on at any time. In fact, I did count on her for many things. She was there for me all the times my ex was being a real jackass. She was there for me throughout my pregnancy. She drove me to the doctor all the times my daughter was sick, when I was without a car and living out in the country. She brought me a real Christmas tree on Christmas Eve one year when we couldn’t afford one. She watched the baby for me when my ex wouldn’t make time, so I could shower. She took my kids to the park one evening when my ex and I were fighting. Gosh, there were so many things she did for me. I hope I was as good a friend to her as she was to me. I hope she knows how much her friendship meant to me.

I had been hoping to reconnect with her after all these years. It’s been 15 years or so since I last saw her or heard from her. I spent the better part of a day, searching Facebook and MySpace, Twitter and the Yellow Pages – problem was I knew she had remarried and I didn’t know her last name. I tried searching for her boys. They were all small when we knew each other. There were three of them; the oldest was only 7 when we first met, the youngest was about 8 months older than my daughter and the middle child was about 4 or 5. They use to call me Aunt Debbie! I tried to find them. I searched Facebook and MySpace, Twitter and the Yellow Pages looking for them. It was difficult because the names were so common and I really didn’t know what they looked like any more. I was discouraged after many hours. Would I ever connect with any of them again?

This morning, I was catching up on some sleep. I’ve been sick and hadn’t been sleeping well. My daughter woke me up and told me I had a phone call.

It was my good friend’s oldest son. I was really happy to hear from him! He took the time to look me up! He found me on MySpace. (Thank the heavens for the age of MySpace and other social networking sites on the internet! Thank the heavens for the internet!)

He still called me Aunt Debbie! It was a great conversation. We talked for half an hour or more. He told me about his brothers, his mom and his own children. He’s in Iraq right now, working as a medic in the Army.  He’s been in the Army for 11 years! I pray he comes home safe, to his family and friends. He may come visit me when he comes home. It will be totally awesome to see him again. We have connected on Facebook and MySpace and will definitely keep in touch. He has put me in touch with his brothers and his mother. I can’t wait to talk to them all!

I like surprises, nice ones that is, and this was most definitely one of the nicest.