They become a family member. It's a VERY painful process when it happens. I'm sorry for what you're going through. I'm sure most of us on here can relate.
I think some sort of a general "meeting" time would be a great idea. It might be hard to nail down a specific time as we've got so many time zones to deal with but if we made it happen like say.... "Friday and Saturday Evenings" (as an example), that might be cool. I used to enjoy bs'ing with everyone in chat too.