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I love snowboarding.

My favorite time to snowboard is during or just following a snowstorm. Yesterday & today the first snowstorm of the 2009-2010 winter descended upon the Twin Cities.  We have three inches of snow in the driveway with more coming.  The winds carving beautiful etches in the snow.  Drifts and drifting snow  danced through the streets and yards.

I wished that I was snowboarding.

I’ve had wonderful snowboarding buddies over the years.  Miska & I tearing it up.  My dad & I in sub-zero weather.  Wonderful memories snowboarding with Josh & Shannon: laughing, chasing, playing follow the leader, muttering, and challenging one another.

While H1N1 dominates the media’s attention and ours, there is a far more devastating pandemic that never makes the nightly news: loneliness.

Every day I read texts, Facebook updates and listen while people express the pain of their loneliness.

Loneliness takes many forms. Longing to dress up for a party Jeanette sits alone on Halloween. Wishing and hoping that her phone would ring Debbie keeps her cell phone volume on “Outdoor” fearing that she might miss the one call that she might receive. While his lunch table mates laugh about the fun they had the night before David suffers in silence wishing that they would finally invite him to join them.