Connected Once More

Twenty years ago I moved away from the Philippines first to go to school in England and then to be married here in the US.  While I maintained communication with my immediate relatives, I have been delinquent in making sure that the same happened with the rest of my acquaintances.  The trips that I took back home were short.  My itinerary did not allow time for meeting my former co-workers, church mates, classmates and relatives who lived away from my mother's place.  Slowly, I began to forget names.  We all grew older, some faster than others.  Faces changed, some more than others.  Not only did I forget names, I also did not recognize the faces anymore.   People moved, erasing the last clue for my memory.   My list of relatives and friends from that side of the world shrunk considerably. 

Now, with Facebook, I am beginning to reconnect with them.  Only now do I realize that some of us who were all in one little town at one time are now scattered all over the world.  I would never have known that my former secretary, Mercy, lives not too far from where I live.  My cousin Ronnie, who was a high school student when I last saw him, now lives in Orange County along with his wife and two children. Who would have known that Senia, my mother's cousin, now lives in Jerusalem, Israel?  Yolanda my former classmate in high school now lives in Canada where she owns a plant nursery and a restaurant.  We were so young but now we are not.  There many more stories of long distance-links being restored. 

 Facebook provided a convenient way to establish a renewed relationship with these folks.  I agree with James Rivington in suggesting that Facebook's success is rooted on vanity.   However, I believe that my reason for applauding the consequences of this networking-craze is beyond mere vain.   The connections that are established serve as conduits of influence.  Both the good and the bad all flow through that same channel.  One has to make a wise choice therefore on the things that we contribute to that system as well as the things that we take in.  A powerful screening system is apropos.