Today, with all the sadness surrounding little Maddie Sphor’s death, I’ve been amazed at the power of the web.
People all over the world have posted about Maddie today.
Plans are being made to remember Maddie.
People have given money to help with Maddie’s funeral costs. (If you’d like to give to that, go to paypal.com, click Send Money. Enter the email address formaddie@hotmomreviews.com and the amount you’d like to give.)
At one point today, Maddie’s March of Dimes fundraiser site was getting an average of one $20 donation every 30 seconds! It’s now reached over $13,000.
Hell, we even got Jimmy Fallon to tweet @mamaspohr (Heather).
All of this made me start to think about the definition of friends. Dictionary.com defines a friend as “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard”. I think it’s obvious from the outpouring today that there are feelings of affection for Maddie, Mike and Heather.
Maggie said it better, but no matter how many people look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about my “bloggy friends” or “Tweeties”…I will no longer apologize for talking about the friends I’ve met online. I will not let myself feel self-concious for asking you to pray for them. (I wouldn’t if I was asking for a friend I know in real life!) These people are real, and they’re real friends. Just think of Twitter as the watercooler for my stay-at-home job. But unlike most people, I get to chose my co-workers. I bet you wish you could do that, huh? 🙂
Like i’ve said…you’re my people.
Love you mean it
I totally agree with your definition of friends. Kevin and I moved to Bradenton Fl when I was 18. I had a 2 year old and no family or friends. I met a great group of girls online and we have been thru it all in the past 10 years. They mean as much to me as the friends I had in school. These girls probably know more about me than anyone else other than my husband. They have been thru 3 full term pregnancies and a miscarriage with me. The loss of family members, the up & downs, ins & outs of marriage. Together we have leaned on one another and held each other up during the times we thought we might not make it. So many people (IRL) look at me stupid when I refer to online people as friends but I feel I have been so blessed to have those girls in my life. I wish we lived closer so we could do lunch or have a GNO but that isn’t the hand I was dealt. I envy the girls we went to school with that have lots of friends here and they are constantly going out together and doing this or that together but I wouldn’t trade my online friends for anything. I will be praying for your friends. 🙂