Computers fascinate me. They have from the first time I saw one in operation in our local Radio Shack way back in the 1970s. However, we had four children, my husband was sporadically employed, and I couldn't afford one.

In 1993 I answered an advertisement that offered a writing course and supplied a computer. There was a low monthly payment plan. I answered the ad and I got my computer. I was 58 years old.

The computer had a DOS operating system. That's what I taught myself on, and that's all I used for the next two years. At the urging of friends, I finally enrolled at Masakhane College (a small community college in northern Alberta, Canada) and took a computer course.

So many new things to learn! Windows. Word Processing. The mouse! I was so ignorant that I started out trying to use the mouse like a TV remote control. I held it up in the air and clicked it at the computer monitor

But I learned the ins and outs of using a computer and graduated with honors. I was 60 years old, older than any of the other students, older than my instructors.

Just before I graduated, the head instructor, Sylvia Lee, introduced me to something new - the Internet. The World Wide Web. Now here was something even more exciting than Windows and the mouse. Here was something I just had to learn about.

I scrimped and saved until finally I could afford to upgrade my computer, install a modem and get on the Internet. In no time at all, I was surfing to my heart's content.

I joined a writer's workshop and my writing began to improve. I tried something new. I set up my own web page on Angelfire and it turned out great, or at least I thought so.

I had been selling articles, short stories and poetry to print publications for 40 years. Now my sales began to increase. And I was having so much fun researching and submitting through the Internet. To add to my pleasure, I no longer had to buy (or lick) stamps. Nor did I have to pace the floor waiting for the mailman. It was all right there, at my fingertips.

Then the bottom fell out of my world. I lost my husband in March of 1998. He died just three days before his 67th birthday. I was shocked and devastated. I went through a spell of deep depression that I thought I would never escape.

Here I was, 63 years of age, alone, too young for full pension. I couldn't find work. Northern Alberta was in a job slump because of falling oil prices. Besides, who would want to hire a woman of my age and train her, knowing she would soon retire?

In desperation, I turned to my writing for solace. I wrote about my husband, his life and his death, bitter poems and stories. I submitted them to my Internet workshop friends.

I let my writing tell them how I was feeling. They encouraged me, stood by me. I began to write more. My writing improved. Although I was still writing about my husband and my loss, now the stories took on a more positive tone.

I was escaping from my depression and feeling better about myself and about my work. I searched the Internet for more places to submit my short stories and articles.

I discovered Suite 101. Suite 101 is a Guided Search Facility that supplies links to a variety of topics. To supplement the links, guides write articles on the various topics and supply links to places where readers could find more information.

I became a regular contributing editor with the topic "Prophecy". I submitted two articles every month for a year and a half. The articles were about a subject I love and I was paid to write them.

The small checks were a nice supplement to my meager pension and helped to pay for my time on line. Before long I was promoted to Managing Editor of the Humanities category.

Lately however, I have become a bit bored with Prophecy, but I didn't want to leave my friends at Suite 101. After a brief discussion with the Manager-in-Chief, we decided that I would switch my topic to something that was dear to both my husband and myself: the sport of rodeo.

My husband was involved, many years ago, in bull riding and chuck wagons. I helped train barrel racers, both the horses and the young ladies who rode them.

This was very amateur, very local rodeo, and many years ago, but we never gave up our love of the sport. I have already started work on my first article. Again, in a way, I am writing about my husband and our life together.

I found several other sites where I could contribute occasional articles. I wrote about gardening, I wrote a few stories and articles for children, and several writing related articles. My income gradually increased.

But my husband's death still haunted me. It made me feel so helpless, so inadequate. Then I thought, "Why not write about it?" My husband suffered from sleep apnea and it was a contributing factor in the heart attack that took his life. One night he fell asleep and he never woke up.

While he was ill and after he died, I did a lot of research, in books, by talking to doctors, but especially on the Internet -- not only about sleep apnea, but into the entire field of sleep disorders.

I contacted The Mining Co -- now about.com, -- another guided search facility, and, after a short training period, I became the Guide About Sleep Disorders.

My writing income now exceeds my pension. But, more important than that, I feel my life is worth living again.

I don't know how I would have survived without my Internet friends and the Workshops. They figuratively held my hand throughout my suffering and recovery.

I discovered that, if you have a modem and know how to surf, you are never alone. I have a daughter who lives in Edmonton, and we exchange email frequently. I have a daughter living upstairs, and we also exchange email!

I have also continued to make more Internet friends as time goes by. We share our troubles and our joys, our failures and our successes. With my friends, my email and my writing, I'm never lonely. I don't have the time.