A L@dy to Remember My first exposure to the internet began six years ago. I installed some software and clicked on a button marked “chat”. I’m reminded of the scene from Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s previously airborne house opens its door onto a strange and wonderful world. Soon, I began “chatting” regularly. The people I found online seemed as perplexed as I about how to use the medium. After entering a chatroom with 15 or 20 strange names listed, it is hard to know what to say. (type) I met one Kentuckian who was never at a loss for words. She chatted under the name “L@dy”. She was proud of her “at sign” and wouldn’t acknowledge you if you tried to greet her with a garden variety “a” in her name. It was “L@dy” or nothing. I liked her immediately. She was a bit rough around the edges, some would even say crude. She spoke openly and honestly about everything and always asked when I was coming to Kentucky for dinner. I was working odd hours then so my chat schedule was unpredictable. Sometimes I would logon in the wee hours expecting to find nobody but there she would be, winking and asking if she could pour me a cup of coffee. I would accept and we would type *gulp* to let each other know we were enjoying our digital beverages. Eventually she even found a graphic of a smoking cup of coffee that she displayed during our clatches. Others were there, but L@dy held a special fascination for me. Not romantic—special. She was more of an unsolved mystery. It was as if L@dy knew something I didn’t and the fact amused her. It was about this time that Jerry Seinfeld and other comedians started introducing “internet geek” jokes into their acts. They were fond of suggesting only “losers” spent time online. The material was funny. I even laughed at it myself. \Then one night I found L@dy alone. I typed my usual greeting but she didn’t seem as chipper as usual. She’d never told me much about herself personally. This night was different. I listened as she talked about her retarded, adult son and how the state had denied him needed care that she couldn’t afford She told me about her teenage daughter who was her pride and joy and how worried she was for her. She told me she didn’t know how she was gong to manage.... “after.” For several minutes she typed nothing. Finally, two words appeared. The screen read “sorry....crying”. By then I had known L@dy more than a year . Until that night I had no idea how ill she truly was. L@dy had lost a leg to diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair. A veinous disease subsequently had forced a series of operations that required veins be stripped from her arms and chest. They had just discovered a very large malignant tumor in her stomach. Once I comprehended her visitation of diseases I realized neither Job nor I had a complaint coming in this world. The next night she was as bawdy and flirtatious as ever sending me private messages that would make a sailor blush—hinting at pleasures we both knew would not be hers again. She even joked about her inability to learn to use the prosthetic leg she’d been fitted with and was considering turning “the damn thing” into a lamp. Over the summer several of us got together in Roanoke to meet for the first time. A biker and his wife came from Ohio. The owner of a piano store was there as was a salesman from Canada. Chatrooms make strange and arbitrary bedfellows. But I was pleased to see none of them more than L@dy. A friend of hers agreed to drive her to Roanoke to meet us. She was bright and funny and full of life. She fairly crackled with excitement as she met us for the first time. We ate and drank and laughed together. It was like the reunion of a family that had materialized from the ethers—the ethers of the internet. L@dy’s proudest moment came when a restaurant manager approached the group and singled her out for admonishment. She was being too loud. The day she left she called my office from her car cell and asked if I could step into the parking lot. L@dy beckoned me to her side of the car. I leaned down for an expected peck on the cheek. Instead, she pulled my head in through the window and kissed me with gusto, square on the mouth. Before I could get a breath to speak she rolled up her window and waved bye-bye. For days after co-workers asked me why I was standing alone in the parking laughing like an idiot that afternoon. That was L@dy. Seize the moment and make the most of it. I’m saddened to say that L@dy died shortly after returning home. All of her internet friends were grief stricken—even those who hadn’t made the “reunion” trip and only knew her by her posts. Internet chatting may be a punch line for some. But for L@dy, it provided the means to be who she was right up until the end of her young life. Without it she never could have laughed, cried, gotten drunk, flirted or experienced the many elements that made her life vibrant. L@dy was only 43 when she died but I think she lived more life seated in her wheelchair behind her flickering monitor than many of us out here in the “real” world. L@dy wasn’t crippling along behind us. She allowed us to strut right up there alongside her. Thanks for all the coffee darlin’. Rest well.