A Virtual Yet Real Sister hood:FAM's

What is a FAM?  We call ourselves a FAM- Forum Addicted Mom.  As a collective group we are FAMs  We have had FABs, those babies who have come since joining our Forum. We have GFAB's Grandbabies of FAM's and we are Aunties to a great deal of children all over the world.  I have 3 FAB's myself.
I met the FAM's the first day I ever logged into the internet from my house in New Mexico, September 6, 1996, Elise and Erik were 5 and 3. We signed an internet contract and hooked our modem based computer up to a phone line and I went online looking for other Mom's who were online. I typed in Moms At Home and got a website called Moms At Home.  I looked around and found a place to leave a comment. This was no regular comment board about how good or bad the website appeared or worked.  This was a group of woman sharing their lives and debating diapers, nursing, religion and baby food.  You didn't open up threads, you just kept reading.  There was a lady from the Bayou of New Orleans and a young mom who shocked us with her belly button ring. There were Moms from California, Washington, Montana, Massachusetts, Maine and Canada, a funny Mom who had a very precocious little girl.  I think my first memory of Mame was someone telling her it was time to take the keys of the bus back.  I will never forget that for some reason.  We all live very different lives.  We all believe very different ways.  We have cried and screamed at each other and for each other.  We have learned from each other. We have tempered one another. We have met in real life and shared each others homes.  We have opened wine bottles with kids camping knives ;-)  We have toured cities together.  We have stayed up late in the night talking  We have driven hours to visit another FAM passing through, even in a brief time frame.   We have rejoiced and mourned for one another.  And we have been in one another's pockets to pull out when we need to know we are not alone.  We are both virtual and real in one another's lives.  Some of us live in the Land Under. One of us has lived in Ukraine and now Africa, I like to live vicariously through her life and adventures.

Today we grieve yet again with a fellow sister, a fellow FAM.  Her husband suddenly passed away and her life and the life of her daughter has changed forever.  We so desperately want to be there for her in real life.  But we are in her pocket for as long as she needs.
Once a FAM always a FAM