So death isn’t anything I would pretend to know about. I’ve felt losses in my life but never like that. They say it’s hard. I have been terrified of it as long as I have grasped the concept. I’m spiritual enough to believe in eternity, and that’s what gets me. You die and that’s it, I’ve always been taught that whatever comes next is forever. I’m pretty sure I believe that, and I can’t take the idea. Fortunately this isn’t about me.

Last week one of my college professors died. She was my advisor actually and on our best days I would call her a friend. She had emergency brain surgery for a surprise brain tumor. They are always surprises I suppose, but this was an extreme case.

One day she passes out on a couch at work and the next she is under the knife. That was a year and a half ago. I think she might have expected to make it, the odds couldn’t have been good but she tried to return to normalcy like nothing had happened. She was teaching classes the following semester, only a handful of weeks later.

I think I expected her to make it. I always take people for granted. Death was for my parents friends, people in newspapers, and the worlds intangible poor too far away too matter.
I’m fine though, maybe I’m too far away for it to matter.

There’s something interesting, she had Facebook and in the days since her death her “wall” has been flooded with support from friends and loved ones. (For those who don’t know Facebook is a social networking site, and a “wall” is a publically viewable message board). I haven’t written anything. It seems like such an information age way to pay ones respects. But it’s not fundamentally different from going to a grave and talking or leaving flowers.

Anyway it’s not like her husband can just shut the thing off. Nor can he change the settings or leave a message saying she has passed one. She might as well still be there reading the messages and writing back (wouldn’t it be a great science fiction story if she did). That’s how I found out about her, I went to her Facebook profile and saw all these goodbye messages. Surreal. There is still a pic of her at an aquarium. It’s a good way to remember her.
So the profile will stay, who knows for how long. Maybe forever - there’s that word again. Maybe she is looking down reading it. Like a “Family Circle” cartoon, face down on a cloud, arms crossed in front of here, laptop open, and a smile on her face. If I were her husband I’d show it at the wake.

I hope it stays up, that’s the kind of eternity I can wrap my head around. Somehow it’s just not so scary. Technology right, I’m just a product of my generation after all. If it does stay I’ll write, there’s even a way to send digital gifts. Flowers that don’t rot, that’s paying respect.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=799879548&ref=ts

LOVE

andy