It amazes me how attached we can become to people we don’t really know. Like fellow bloggers or members of a discussion board.

I feel as if I know Kami Huyse, Ed Lee, Greg Brooks and others. But I don’t really know them. Heck, except for Greg, I’ve never even talked with the majority of them.

My relationships with bloggers and others in my cyber realm is based on reading their blogs, e-mail and IM correspondence and assuming the good in my fellow man/woman.

That relationship is similar to what we may feel for a TV show host or a radio DJ we regularly watch and listen to. But, closer because there is better back-and-forth communication.

Another person I don’t really know is Reid/SCEagle. Reid’s A Storm in Afghanistan is a blog I found and started reading regularly just about a year ago for a client. (Even by then, I think Reid was out of Afghanistan and stationed in Germany.) When the client project finish, I continued to periodically read Reid’s blog, and other milblogs I found.

I read about the new home Reid and his wife, Ellicia, and three children moved into. I read his other posts about serving the military.

I read about his wife’s battle with cancer.

I read about his successful efforts to apply to the military to move his family back to the states to seek better treatment for his wife.

Yesterday, I read of Ellicia’s death on New Year’s Eve.

This morning, I saw his loving tribute to Ellicia with a series of photos of her and with the family.

And, both mornings, I cried for the loss of a mother and wife, and for Reid’s moving and loving tribute to Ellicia.

Really, I don’t know Reid nor his family. But, from reading his blog (and a couple e-mail exchanges), I know we share some common values and he has allowed me — and many others — peaks into his military and personal life.

I guess that’s why it’s called social media.

And, if we can become better — professionally and/or personally — from it, those relationships are just as valuable in their own way as those relationships with people I really know.

I know I’m a better person because of those relationships.

– Michael