The one who almost got away...

So I have this record which I am rather fond of. I have never lost a friend, as in I am not talking about death, but never lost contact. I have tracked down people who had settled abroad, had changed their surnames and that too before Facebook and Google, after a gap of around 2 decades. There was hardly anyone I couldn't track, and I did track down quite a few and the rest I never lost sight of. Except one.
The irony of that was she was in my hometown, so technically she should have been the easiest to track. But I never could. She wasn't there on any social media. The hospital where we both had worked had shut down. We had no common acquaintance. Our one common friend was now semi-hostile. Plus with my bad memory for names I could not recollect of anyone else who had worked in the hospital. In short I had no leads to follow on, so was practically screwed! But I never gave up hope. 
I used to regularly scan the social media platforms in case she turns up somewhere, but with no luck. 
Fast forwarding to more than 21 years later one day while passing time in the department I thought of googling her name while doing research for an article I was working on. And presto! There she was!!! Or her mention in an article about a private medical college in my hometown.
After that I forgot all about my article and got on to dig out more details about her from the net. There was hardly anything though worth retrieving, but I did manage to grab hold of her Twitter handle. Now Twitter was one platform which I had never checked in cause one, I hardly used it and two, hardly anyone in my friend circle was active on it. That was literally the last place where I could have expected her, or anyone for that matter who is avoiding social media, to be. 
To cut the long story short, I inboxed her a message and thanking my lucky stars she remembered me! I met her the next time I came home.
So here we are, very much in contact after all these years, my outstanding record restored, and planning to not let her slip away from my sight ever again!

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