This makes me think of Jeff Colby [[ItsJeff)

[RealityCheck]

Thanks to a link from Andrew Sullivan's blog at Atlantic magazine, I just read a Sept. 15 post about the strong emotional ties that online communities can nurture. It's titled Strange Connections.

It's about the impact of a World of Warcraft player's death, a situation distinctly different from what developed here in mid-February 2007 after the loss of Jeff Colby . . . though that immediately came to mind.

This link and an excerpt below are shared as reminders that even those who didn't toast the holidays with Django at the Old Miami on Wednesday or who don't attend other forum gatherings can feel a sense of community . . . belonging . . . affinity as part of Lowell's Legion.

This also provides a chance to pay tribute, again, to the DY stalwart who saw the love and greatness in Detroit, as his RiverWalk memorial paver says. Like the unseen friend mourned below, Jeff Colby touched may people who never saw his smile.

Every now and then something happens that makes you see things a little bit differently. . . . After an initial shock, I then found myself crying over a person I had never met. I didn't even know what he looked like until I saw his obituary!

. . . I was crying over someone I had met in a game. Was I crazy? No. I wasn't. What could be more natural than becoming friends with the people you spend time with over a mutually enjoyable pastime? . . . At first I was ashamed to admit that I was so shaken by the death of a person I knew first 'in-game.' But . . . maybe that isn't such a strange connection after all.