Dianna Bingham, my faraway friend, has retired. Not from her eight-to-five job working for a firm of solicitors in Brisbane, Australia – she did that several years ago – but as webmistress for my website, which she created and managed for the last fifteen years, voluntarily.

Yep, that’s right; Di Bingham created, managed, and maintained www.michaelmcgarrity.com because she liked my Kevin Kerney novels, thought I needed a website, and volunteered to build one for me just for the fun of it.

Being the savvy guy I am, I took her up on the offer and in the process made a friend I’ve come to respect, admire, and hold dear. Not because she built my website and never asked for a dime, but because of what I know about the life she built for herself, the hardships and tragedies she endured, the obstacles she overcame, and her fierce determinate to survive.

I can’t tell you Di’s story, that’s hers alone to tell. But if I could, trust me, you’d find it courageous and gripping. It would be a story that would make you laugh. cry, break your heart, and leave you shaking your head in wonderment. She is one remarkable lady and although we’ve never met in person, I am honored have her as my dearest, faraway friend.

With Di’s retirement the website will be dormant for a time, and all of you on the update mailing list will no longer get one of Di’s famous announcements that I had something new to say on the site. (I sometimes think folks liked her reports from down under more than my ramblings.) 

I don’t know of any other established writer having someone volunteer to create and maintain a website for them for fifteen years, so what Di Bingham did for me was very, very special. And while you’ll no longer hear from her through my website, be assured that I’ll stay in touch with her, for the gods only give us a limited number of friends like Di.

Please join with me to wish her a happy retirement from my website. For now, you can stay in touch with me though this Blog or my Facebook page. And Di, my faraway friend, I’ll talk to you soon, promise.