There's always a certain sadness to the New Year song Auld Lang Syne because, of course, people come into our lives, we love them, and they drift away.
Unlike in eras past, those people we once loved are no longer really lost. You can find people these days with internet searches, sometimes easy, sometimes having to dig a little harder.
The good part is that searching for old friends is free if you do it yourself. And, secondly, you don't actually have to contact them.
One 85-year-old man lost his wife of 50 years and became morose, feeling he had no reason to live. But, after suffering for months, he remembered an old friend. He typed her name into the Google search engine and immediately found her Facebook page. She lived in the same town! She had also lost her spouse. He called her and six months later, they were married.
A 70-year-old woman recalled one night an old flame. She typed his name and location into a search engine. She immediately found him. Sadly, he had passed away more than a decade earlier.
A 50-year-old woman knew the name of her birth father. One day, for fun, she typed in his name and last known location. The birth father had passed, but she discovered she had a half-brother. They soon met.
If you search, be prepared for either good news or bad.
You can try your search first through Facebook. Or you can use a search engine. Spell the name as accurately as possible and type in the state or locale in which your friend once lived.
If you think your friend has died, type in "obituaries" along with the name and location.