A longtime Facebook friend died the day I’m writing this and her death was unusually impactful.

I felt like I knew her pretty well, although we’d never actually met in person or even spoken on the phone. That’s how it is with social media: we think we know our social media connections. They’re even called “Facebook friends.”

Friends.

And in one respect, they are. We are privy to their lives: people reveal themselves, either purposely or inadvertently, especially when they over-share.

And boy, did she over-share. So many mundane details about her life (what she ate, how she slept, what she streamed, what she was doing at any given moment, at one point her bowel habits) but also more personal things about thoughts and actions–posts that revealed much of who she was at a deeper lovel.

Or seemed to.

Who really knows what those posts had to do with her real life?

She was very cagey about what she revealed and never answered a direct question. I came to see that as strategic. I always got the sense she was constantly managing her public image.

She had her reasons.

I knew she was sweetly devoted to her husband, her son, her grandkids and her cat. They were the most important things in her life. She was pretty smart. She was raised in an affluent family and often posted about her privileged childhood.

But as an adult, her life decisions weren’t the best  and she and her husband had fallen on hard times. She now lived in a “studio” apartment that was more like a  single room occupancy. Somehow, she made the room a cozy home. It seemed they lived hand to mouth.

Or did they?

There’s no question she knew how to manipulate her social media friends into sending her money, appliances and other things. She was really, really good at it. And most of us did fall for it, at least at first. After a while, though, social media friends who’d been around a while recognized what was going on. Some of them had very little, themselves, and somehow managed to send her money. It was hard to see her post about buying filet mignon and salmon. Then again, who am I to begrudge her a nice meal?

I just worried that others shorted themselves because she seemed worse off than they. And wasn’t.

There was always a fresh stream of benefactors as new friends became fresh targets.

Which is why it wouldn’t surprise me if she died with a hefty bank account.

Or broke. Either is possible.

The scenario sounds sinister, doesn’t it?  It really wasn’t.

Oh, I don’t know.

Was it?

It’s not like they didn’t need the help. Just that I struggled with the sense of entitlement in the grift. But her situation had to be such a comedown after a privileged start to life.

It’s an old story.

Sometimes her solicitations were so obnoxious I thought about unfriending her. But I never did. I couldn’t look away and I don’t know why. I just found her strangely fascinating and also, sad. And needy, especially of attention. She infuriated me and she touched me. Both.I often wondered how she ended up the way she was.

And then, not too long ago, she was diagnosed. Unexpectedly. And within a few short months, gone.

It’s hard to know what really happened, because it seemed to progress in fast forward. She obviously ignored symptoms and signs, despite the pleas of her Facebook friends. She failed to follow up with doctors. Or they failed to follow up with her. Or both.

But the end did come quickly.

Was it the cancer? Or was it the awful infection that she had not appropriately treated? We don’t know.

We may never know.

It was one of the subjects about which she was reluctant to give information, although we learned a whole lot else we never wanted to know.

It’s hard to remember how she and I connected in the beginning. Maybe she arrived with the huge number of Pantsuit Nation women who connected after Hillary lost. But however she arrived, she became a staple of my daily check in with Facebook.

Although we’d never met, in a strange way, she became part of my life. She touched me and was the catalyst for looking at myself and my attitudes more deeply.

That would probably surprise her.

Now, though, she’s on the other side, privy to all the secrets of life and death.

So based on what I’ve told you, you might think hers was a disappointing and sad life. And in many ways, you’d be right.

But not all ways.

She and her husband had a love story to rival any Hollywood movie.  She knew heartbreak, but she also knew great love.

Which is more than many can say.

That love was a comfort to her throughout the many down times she faced. It was real. And heartwarming.

If you think she passed through this life and didn’t leave a mark, you’d be wrong.

I’m going to miss her.