MISSED OPPORTUNITY

On Aug 25 th, Reuion.com sent me an e-mail. They send me e-mail about every two weeks or so, I signed up at their website sometime before I retired in 2002, but never renewed my subscription. I generally delete their e-mails without opening them, as I know from experience, they are trying to get me to renew my subscription. But this time, the subject line said:

SUSAN, Reply Free to Your Message from Mary Ellen Niemeyer/Parker (Woods).

As I am planning to attend my 40th high school reunion next week, I thought, I might as well check this message out. I looked in my yearbook and found Mary Ellen Woods. I did not quite remember her, but was flattered she remembered me. So I went to the web site and found an e-mail from 2002 witch said;

Hi Sue,

It has been such a long, long, time since we talked, and I know we did...but of course at this age our memories are a bit dull.Don't have a yearbook, but didn't you have brown curly hair and a little bigger than some of the girls? I was tiny but now twice that size due to illness and crippling.I think you stole my radio in the john, now do you remember me? haha (forgiven, if it has bothered you, we all did weird stuff then)

I married my highschool sweetheart, Earl, but divorced over 10 yrs ago. I have two children in their 30's and did like you , spread out my family....my baby is now 21. I have two granddaughters from Dawn, my highshcool lovechild, and two adopted grandkids from Eric, (he arrived 11 monthes after Dawn). I was still such a baby when I had those two. Travis arrived 14 yrs later and was the toughest to raise, the one that worried me the most I think. He just married this year and moved to Kansas City about a month ago.

Do you have a website?
Here's mine:

http://www.geocities.com/umpysite/


I was not the one Mary Ellen remembered, I did not steal her radio, as I had my own ‘transistor’ radio. We who could afford them carried them in our purses for use at lunchtime or walking home from school, and I did not have curly hair and was not overly large in high school, but I decided to contact Mary Ellen anyway. She sounded like a neat person. She, like me had been married twice, had a number of children, and had some of the same interests as I, even apparently expanded weight like myself. Besides perhaps she was coming to the reunion. It would not hurt to renew an old friendship before the party. Someone to look forward to seeing, for sure.

Although I did leave a reply to her 2002 e-mail at Reunion.com, I reasoned that she might not have the same e-mail address as had been connected to that 2002 e-mail, so as she said she had a web site, I started there. I was impressed with her skill and creativity on her website and felt even more that I would like to get in touch with Mary Ellen Through links and Googling I found several e-mail addresses for Mary Ellen. I sent a short e-mail to each, but each came back as a failure to deliver.

Still searching around for a more recent e-mail address, I found myself at the guest book for Mary Ellen’s website. The last entry was in Feb 2005. It was from her sister, Cathy. She said she had just visited Mary Ellen’s website, because she missed her so much.

I then Googled for Mary Ellen’s obituary and found it.

Mary Ellen Woods Niemeyer Parker, 56, of Harrison, Ark., died Sunday, Aug. 29, 2004, at her home. Just a few days shy of a year before Reunion.com sent her 2002 e-mail to me.

I am sorry Mary Ellen, that I did not find your e-mail to me sooner. I would have liked to have known you again. I am sorry I missed the opportunity. Goodbye.