problem of a new era
what do you do when facebook (etc) tells you to "say hello" to this friend you haven't posted to/messaged in a while? when the reason you have not posted/messaged in a while is that that friend is dead?
i love my friends. i mourn them when terrible things steal them away from me and all the other people who love them. but it's an odd thing to continue to write to them via their social networking profiles and so on, so i don't really do it.
when ethan died, years ago, i called the store several times to hear his voice on the shop's voicemail, and i dropped by to help clean up and kept a scrap of paper with his handwriting on it. this was before the internet minded our relationships for us. hearing his actual, if disembodied and digitized, voice and holding actual paper with his actual handwriting seemed to connect me with this dead friend in a way that was so concrete and personal. and private, too, which for whatever reason means something significant to me.
when tim, when donna, when rich all died, i have scraps and recordings of their voices, and in tim's and rich's case, i have video of each of them in their teens and early twenties. i think of these things when i think of them, and it pulls me back to them-- who they were when i knew them well. who i was when we knew each other well.
facebook, myspace... i don't know. these things feel very strange, they highlight a fact of death that will never feel comfortable, even though it's nothing new and is hardly surprising to anyone, anywhere. it reminds us that we continue to grow old without our friends-- that Who They Are is forever arrested, they are stuck in time, they will never walk with us forward into our lives with our own aging partners, children and so on. we can never have that banter back and forth again. unlike the scrap of paper, the recorded video from some middlesex show in 1995, unlike the index card with the notes scrawled on them, facebook profiles are meant to be dynamic, living, communicative. the profiles of dead friends feel very, very strange. it makes me feel unhappy in a way that death has never made me feel unhappy before. it makes me feel as though we-- the people who check their profiles (sorry, that "we" does not include me anymore-- not generally, anyway)-- are asking something of them that they cannot give. it feels like we are clinging at pieces of their lives and asking them to respond to our wants (contact, connection) in a way that they cannot oblige. it seems unfair. i mean, grieve how you want to grieve, and miss how you want to miss. but this is how it feels to me. it just makes the ache feel larger, the void wider.
i haven't edited this, or even re-read it to myself. sorry if it's a mess.
brought to you by facebook telling me i need to check in with richie c.
i'm sure others are still leaving him messages, but i can't do it.
thank god mom never got on facebook, that's all i can say.
i love my friends. i mourn them when terrible things steal them away from me and all the other people who love them. but it's an odd thing to continue to write to them via their social networking profiles and so on, so i don't really do it.
when ethan died, years ago, i called the store several times to hear his voice on the shop's voicemail, and i dropped by to help clean up and kept a scrap of paper with his handwriting on it. this was before the internet minded our relationships for us. hearing his actual, if disembodied and digitized, voice and holding actual paper with his actual handwriting seemed to connect me with this dead friend in a way that was so concrete and personal. and private, too, which for whatever reason means something significant to me.
when tim, when donna, when rich all died, i have scraps and recordings of their voices, and in tim's and rich's case, i have video of each of them in their teens and early twenties. i think of these things when i think of them, and it pulls me back to them-- who they were when i knew them well. who i was when we knew each other well.
facebook, myspace... i don't know. these things feel very strange, they highlight a fact of death that will never feel comfortable, even though it's nothing new and is hardly surprising to anyone, anywhere. it reminds us that we continue to grow old without our friends-- that Who They Are is forever arrested, they are stuck in time, they will never walk with us forward into our lives with our own aging partners, children and so on. we can never have that banter back and forth again. unlike the scrap of paper, the recorded video from some middlesex show in 1995, unlike the index card with the notes scrawled on them, facebook profiles are meant to be dynamic, living, communicative. the profiles of dead friends feel very, very strange. it makes me feel unhappy in a way that death has never made me feel unhappy before. it makes me feel as though we-- the people who check their profiles (sorry, that "we" does not include me anymore-- not generally, anyway)-- are asking something of them that they cannot give. it feels like we are clinging at pieces of their lives and asking them to respond to our wants (contact, connection) in a way that they cannot oblige. it seems unfair. i mean, grieve how you want to grieve, and miss how you want to miss. but this is how it feels to me. it just makes the ache feel larger, the void wider.
i haven't edited this, or even re-read it to myself. sorry if it's a mess.
brought to you by facebook telling me i need to check in with richie c.
i'm sure others are still leaving him messages, but i can't do it.
thank god mom never got on facebook, that's all i can say.
posted by raritan at 11:12 PM
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