Angielina and I never met in person. She lived in Vinita, OK, and I live in White Plains, NY. We met online on a beadwork forum nearly 20 years ago, and bonded over our love of beads and beading. She was Native American (part Choctaw, part Cherokee) and made the most gorgeous, traditional beadwork with a modern twist.

Later in our lives, when Facebook became a thing, we of course became friends on there as well. I really started to get to know more about her – her culture, her kindheartedness, her beautiful drawings, her love of her family, the love (bordering on obsession) of coffee we both shared. She had some health issues, diabetes being one of them. She had lost a lot of weight, though, and many of us were cheering her on. She’d been through a lot with her health. Toward the beginning of the pandemic, she had to have heart surgery (which, thankfully, went fine).

A bit later on during the pandemic, she got her “dream job” (as she called it) working at a local clinic. I was so happy for her. She’d gone to art school, but had wound up working at jobs that just didn’t suit her. She had a big heart and wanted to be helping others.

At some point, in January of 2021, she made her final Facebook post. It said something like, “I got the COVID. Pray for me.”

She passed away a few days later.

I did not find out what had happened for a few months – I knew that I had not been seeing her posts, but I wasn’t on Facebook much due to personal issues. I thought she’d probably been posting and I was just not seeing her posts. I finally realized that it had been quite a while, and I missed seeing her posts, so I went to her personal Facebook page…where I found out the horrible news.

Although she and I never met in person, I feel the loss as keenly as though we had. She was my beading friend, my fellow coffee enthusiast, always full of kind words and moral support and generosity. She had a beautiful soul and the world lost her too soon. I miss my friend terribly.