Article: 5123 of fa.future-culture Path: ifi.uio.no!internet-mailinglist From: Hobbes Newsgroups: fa.future-culture Subject: Re: RL Death Date: 13 Nov 1993 19:06:48 +0100 Organization: Internet mailing list Lines: 148 Message-ID: <2c37no$9r9@ifi.uio.no> Reply-To: Future Culture NNTP-Posting-Host: ifi.uio.no Return-Path: <<@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU:owner-futurec@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>> Original-Message-Id: <19931113180640.10086.ifi@ifi.uio.no> Original-Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 13:06:24 EST Comments: To: FUTUREC@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU To: Multiple recipients of list FUTUREC In-Reply-To: <199311122328.AA07840@rowe.williams.edu>; from "tom crimi" at Nov 12, 93 6:15 pm All this talk about death and the net spurred me to do some typing. This article appeared in _The Gharial_, a publication of Williams College, in the November 1993 issue. It is reproduced more or less exactly as it appeared. ------------ begin article ----------- _To Be Read Slowly_ (anonymous) October 13, 1993 One week and one day ago, around 12:30 in the afternoon, I lost one of my dearest friends to cancer. And as much as it hurts that I nevr got a chance to say good-bye, it also hurts that I never got a chance to say hello. You see, we never once met. That's how Email friendships generally work. I was in New Jersey, she was in Missouri, and neither of us was really in a position to travel. Nor was it a priority. We didn't need to meet each other to be friends. Sure, being able to talk face to face would have been nice, and through some tough times an actual shoulder to lean on would have been helpful, but it wasn't necessary. And certainly in one major way we were very good friends: we talked about everything. We had to. So why is it so hard for me to mourn? Why is it so hard for me to miss her? The answer is maddeningly simple: She was never here. She was never in what some people would call my "real" life, nor was she one of my "real" friends. Except for a single blurry photograph (she didn't like camers), I wouldn't even know what she looked like. Except for some letters written during a period when she didn't have computer access, the only record of the fact that we ever knew each other are old phone bills (for we did get a few chances to call each other, for which I am very thankful now) and old Email letters floating out somewhere amidst the ether. That's all. There's nothing for me to grab on to, nothing for me to hold and shake and stare at and... And what? There's nothing for me to say good-bye to. There are some jokes I no longer have reasons to tell; no one will understand them. There are expressions and catch phrases I'll probably never see again. I don't even know anyone else in Missouri... Another connection broken. This is to be expected, I suppose. A certain part of my life, a friendship only a few people knew of, has ended. I know no one else can completely understand that. What frustrates me is that even I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand how everything seems to have disappeared into the mist, how ephemeral everything was, how tenuous. You get used to silences in Email. People travel; people work; people have computer problems. When the distance between two people is great, nothing can be done about that; you just wait until your friend reappears. With good friends it doesn't make a difference -- it's like they'd never left. You don't think about what could happen in-between. Even if you do, there's nothing you can do about that either so you conveniently forget. Or you pretend to forget while worrying excessively. You could say I'm a type two personality. Yet I didn't see this coming. I knew she was sick, and I knew that she'd been sick since I'd known her. It had gotten very serious at one point, but she gave every impression that things would improve, even when she let slip moments of frustration and sadness. I guess that as much as I worried, I never truly believed anything could happen. It's not that I had delusions of immortality. I just thought we had more time. She did her best to keep me deluded; she didn't like people worrying about her. We'd both been busy during the summer, and as college rapidly approached I became busier and busier. The gaps, the silences widened. I let delusion take over and I stopped worrying. Now I'd give anything to be able to worry again. It still hasn't sunk in. It's been a week and a day and it still hasn't sunk in. There have been moments, of course, when I've felt something inside me slowly sinking, but I still don't think I've fully absorbed it. Maybe it's because I was told by a friend's Email. Words. That's all I really have to remember her by, and maybe I'm just adding these new words to the list I'm fervently trying to remember. Maybe part of me still believes that she'll reappear in my Email box to talk about this latest development. Maybe I haven't really received a sign of her passing. Her silence is still there, and I'm still waiting. If it doesn't sink in before then, I know it finally will when I end up sitting down and deciding -- maybe even beginning to write, only to realize she isn't there to respond. That will be the most difficult step. I know she isn't here, because she never was here. We always met someplace in-between, and I won't realize that's gone until I try to go back. I started writing this essay to explain why I thought what I was going through was so very different, only to discover that it is mostly the same. Still, I am frightened by the thought that I might never have heard of her passing at all, had not a mutual friend been staying with her at the time. Someone else who didn't know about her friends "in-between" might never have thought to look for them. That invisibility scares me. The thought that friends could simply disappear, could simply vanish into silence, scares me. The fact that I am helpless to change that... scares me. There is an old rhyme about a little man upon a stair, a little man who wasn't there. I never thought I would be that man. I never thought it would be everyone else who would disappear. It's hard for me to realize that even now. This network of friends I hvae is indeed a network; a thin web is, pound for pound, stronger than steel. But nobody'd believe it. I miss her. It's strange to think that I'm missing someone I never met. It's stranger yet to think I knew her better than I know many people whom I have met. But that's a different essay entirely... one which she'd probably have encouraged me to write. I realize I haven't given you many details to work with. No color of eyes or hair, no height, weight, age or nationality. They're just not what spring to mind when I think of her. What does I could never express well enough for you to understand. I could never explain what made her so unique in my life, because if I could, I'd be out looking for more of it. As it is, I'm just very thankful that some of it came my way. (A rather corny sentiment, granted, but true nonetheless.) I could tell you about her likes and dislikes, about her past adventures and future hopes, about her views on a variety of topics. I could never tell you who she was. I don't know if anyone can know anyone else that well. I'm just very sad that I never got a chance to try to. I don't think I'm ready to say good-bye yet. I'm ready to say hello. Hello... I don't believe we've met. Hello... My name is... ----------------------- end article -------