Eternal Life on the Internet

I must confess that I love today’s social technology!  I text and email and send pictures, write this blog….and on and on.  When Pinterest (electronic hoarding) wasn’t working correctly recently it put a crimp in my evening entertainment! (I actually got some housework done)  I confess I would give up my TV, something I really don’t care about any more, before I would let anyone touch my computer.   I’m hooked.

Of all the things I enjoy I especially like Facebook. It has allowed me to reconnect with so many people I went to school with and other people I had lost touch with years ago.   I’ve also made some new friends and acquaintances and this social medium allows me to get to know more about their lives and their families.  I love looking for pictures and posts that I think will amuse or pique the interest of my “friends”, and I look forward to the interaction each day.   It’s an amazing and useful tool that I utilize every day.

All that enjoyment is not without its flip side, however.    Over the last couple of years I’ve lost some friends and a family member whose Facebook pages are still on line.   I have a tough time wrapping my head around the fact that their faces still smile at me from the computer…their albums are still available to view and, in some cases, updated by friends or family….but they no longer exist.  How can that be?

 A couple of these pages I’ve visited numerous times, especially on a birthday or holiday.  I never leave a message…and if I did for whom would it be intended?  At times it seems poignant…at time ghoulish.   This electronic “grave visit” can be confusing.  The customs of how we honor and remember our dead are changing with the technology.   I’ve signed a good number of electronic guest books the last few years, and I see more and more permanent memorial pages on web.  They strike me as an electronic tombstone with music.

Perhaps the days of the carved angel over the grave are coming to an end….replaced by a selection of Beatles songs and a slideshow presentation of the lost loved ones life.  Instead of visiting the graveyard will tomorrow’s mourner be vising the memorial site from the comfort of the recliner? 

I have pictures of loved ones that I cherish, but somehow a Facebook page seems to keep a person alive in a way that doesn’t actually make sense to me.   I guess it’s not a good thing or a bad thing…..it is what it is.   Like so many things in today’s world it confuses and fascinates me.

                                                        Life is Good (and death is different)