My mom and the wonders of the internet

What's become a commonplace dividend for so many of us in the internet age has now come to my 77 year old mom. Her excitement of the moment concerns the following. Recently, through a chain of events - a young nephew giving her a comic book sometime in the 1970s created by a long lost early boyfriend from the 1940s (i.e. her first beau at age 12-15), a grandson seeing the comic book in her apt. and asking about the connection, that same grandson asking about the connection again just recently, a daughter (not me) re-connecting with an old best friend in the U.K. from 1963 based on a random internet search, my mother realizing that she too could google. And bam, a website found, and an email sent to a boyfriend from over 60 years ago, "I wonder if you remember me..." Within 24 hours the response, "DO I REMEMBER YOU??!!!" A flurry of emails, then a special edition hardcover book mailed, published 18 months earlier, with a rather large photo of my mother when young, with the caption, "My first love....I often wonder what's become of her."

My mother keeps saying, "What're the odds?" And can talk of little else, so ecstatic is she with the reunion. Loving the connection, as well as loving as the addition of a new best friend, ironically, the beau's second wife.

I smile and am amused. Happy for her. Familiar with the aha! These reunions becoming more commonplace. I think pre-internet, few of us knew how long we lived in other's hearts. Sure it's not absolute. I've searched for long lost friends and loved ones I can't locate. And there are some I've found. Nothing as dramatic as my mother's tale, but I get the thrill. It is a delight. And a delight too to see my kids listening with glee as she recounts so excitedly this guy she knew as a young teen, all these years later.