Sibling Assignment # 152: The Queen of Facebook Without Ever Logging In

For those of you new to my blog the sibling assignment project started back in 2007 as a writing prompt each week between myself and my two siblings. Each week one of us chooses the prompt. You can click my first blog to find the first 151 assignments.

Sibling Assignment #152 given by my sister Carol:

 Share how the social network Facebook has affected your relationships with other people. You will find brother Bill's here and sister Carol's here soon.

Facebook as been an amazing way for me to reconnect with relatives, find college friends, rekindle childhood friendships, find former students, and find new friends. As my brother said in his blog post "I never saw it coming."

One of the joyful surprises of Facebook is the presence of my mother. My mother doesn't have a computer, has only been online when we work with her, has never logged on to Facebook and doesn't really get it yet when I shared the photo album of her 80th birthday party the comment thread went wild with best wishes to my mom.

Any time I share a photo, story, or event that has to do with my mom, my Facebook friends come out of the woodwork. My mom taught school in Kellogg and if she didn't have my Facebook friends as a teacher, she knew many of them as parents of students or relatives. If my mom had a Facebook profile page, she would have more friends than my niece Coco. Coco has topped out at 682. All of us don't go very long without hearing from someone that has a story to tell about how my mother left an impression on them, taught them well, put up mailboxes on Valentine's Day, or went to Washington D.C. for National History Day. Perhaps my next move is to make a Mary Idell West Woolum Fan Page on Facebook to see how many people would " Like" it.

 The picture above was taken at her birthday party last January. Even without Facebook Mom has been able to sustain long friendships the old-fashioned way.  Recently with much sadness we said good-bye to her friend Doris standing with her. I just love how I captured their friendship in this single picture.