Modern technology is truly astounding in the manner in which it can put us in touch with one another. An old girlfriend whose friendship dated from around the time I met the boy who would become my husband, is now in touch with me though we haven't seen one another for well over fifty years. Our last close contact must have been when we were in our early 20s.

A few years ago, my sister became friendly with a woman she met when she and her husband were out dancing at a local social club in Toronto. Conversation led to the revelation that my sister's new acquaintance was one of my old teen-age girlfriends. Although my sister doesn't use a computer, our mutual friend does and I relayed to my sister my email address. From then it took no time to re-establish contact.

Hers has been a life fraught with quite a bit of personal stress and mine has been, relatively speaking, anything but. We relived old days briefly, and she put me in touch with a few of our other teen-age mutual friends from 'way back when. Two of whom I had been quite close with, but lost contact when my husband and I began raising our family and moved out of the city. Nor was their experience in life seamlessly satisfying. All of them were, regardless fairly optimistic, and all had grandchildren out of their marriages. With those latter two a brief, transitory correspondence by mail ensued, then flicked itself out of existence.

My friend who regularly updates her email acquaintances has sent me, over the years we've re-established contact, a number of photographs of a man whom she has been 'dating', and regularly travelling together with in the winter months to Florida, to escape Canada's harsh winter conditions. He's a Holocaust survivor, and 94 years of age, and she seems very happy with their relationship.