My Missing Pen Pal

That night I cried, and grieved that such a compassionate person should be taken from this world so early in life.

The next day I called the Coast Guard in his area and asked them if they had any reports of boating accidents involving a boat bearing the name he had given me. They were very kind and didn’t seem to think this was an unusual question, but no, there were no reports of people lost at sea on the weekend I had last heard from him. For some reason I still held onto the belief that he was alive. If he was though, why wasn’t he writing to me any more? Perhaps he was sick and in the hospital? What could have happened to him? He had always said he would never want to hurt another person and he was the one who had suggested the commitment of letting the other person know if one of us wanted to end the correspondence.

One month after my last note from him, I woke up early and found myself drawn to the computer again. I had not been able to write stories all this time. This day I went back into the web site and looked up his name again. Sure enough, it had been updated just one week earlier. He was still alive, so that was good, but he still wasn’t writing to me. I checked the web site again a few days later and there was one of the stories he had written “especially for me” just posted. I felt betrayed, how could he have done this to me? What had I done to make him act this way? I wrote again to him at the new e-mail address that went with his author’s site, saying “I don’t mind if you don’t want to correspond any more, but I think you should at least tell me why!” Still no response. I became angry and wrote again venting my feelings, then begging, “Please just write to me one more time and tell me WHY!” The next week the special story I had kept in the bathroom cabinet appeared in print for everyone to read.

That was when I decided to submit my own stories for publication. I would send in the stories I had written especially for him too. I wondered how would he feel when he saw the stories I wrote for him in print? I e-mailed him and said that if he didn’t reply I was assuming ownership of the joint story. No response.

So, at least I know my former pen pal is alive and well in cyberspace somewhere. I would still like to know why he doesn’t want to write to me any more, but there is no point in dwelling on this forever. I have made some new pen friends since then and they are equally as interesting, and I am learning much from them too.

From my first pen pal I learned never to trust anyone you meet in the big city known as The Internet. I learned to harden my heart and suffer rejection quietly. I will not become so attached to someone again that’s for sure.

However, he did give me the courage to write my stories down. Since I started to do that I have received many positive feedback letters from readers who enjoy them. This brings me great joy, and for that gift I will always be grateful to My Missing Pen Pal.