The Joie Chronicles Chapter 1 (Republish)

I miss my friend. She's been gone for several days now. I hope she comes back okay. I've only known Joelle Maxine Lindley, Joie for short, for about four months but we've already become friends. We met through an online friend, Anna. Oh yes, she's also a member of the W.I.T.C.H. board. We met while in a conference chat with some WITCHies in YIM. She's 20 and is half-English, half-French. We've only said hi and hello in the posts at the board before. It then turned to midnight chatting in YIM, then the CBox in a forum where we're both members also. Next thing we knew, we were "conquering" the chat zones online, talking nonsense, never knowing that by doing so we were fast becoming friends. We both learned that we have some things in common: love for Harry Potter and love for Barbie Fairytopia.

Our love for Harry Potter helped me form an idea to make a role-playing forum of our own. Since I'm not familiar with Proboards environment, she helped me, thus becoming my co-admin, do the skins and the info centre. We were thinking and joking about what we're going to place in the boards. She helped me a lot.

Since she lives in France, there's a six-hour time difference. Although I can stay up at 4 in the morning, sometimes it was also a problem. So the e-mails came through. We passed on the pictures we can use for our forum. Then we talk about nonsense again, joking that we have to do the pictures fast. We also share the love of dowloading additional Photoshop brushes so we can use it for the pictures. The first time she got me hooked on this brush business, I sent her a picture of crowded brushes. She said it was fun to look at and cool. I even pointed out the fleur-de-lis, France's flower.

I never thought Joie and I would click. She is such a bundle of joy, laughing at odd things, you never know that she's ill. In one forum, she told us that she'll be leaving. On 21 June, she left for Maryland, for Johns-Hopkins. She'll have her operation there. She has leukemia.