Friday, December 4, 2009

Facebook And The Looming Death Of Friends

It's been a long time since I was in high school. Most of the time since then, of course, we didn't have the computers, the internet -- and certainly we didn't have the current social media sites. The one I'm thinking of is Facebook.

So, being there, we've been touching base again with old high school friends, and some who weren't exactly friends, but the times are different decades later. There they are, a bunch of old folks. I check the yearbook once in a while to see who I'm dealing with, because, to a certain extent, they look like that still in my mind.

There's been a bunch of classmates die. Not ones I've known on Facebook though. But at the class reunion, the last one, we had a moment of silence for a whole list of people.

Now I know someone on Facebook from my class who could very well die. She's got enough wrong with her, serious cancer issues. The thing here, though, is that I'm not friends with her personally on Facebook, but I know a couple of people who are friends, who say what's going on.

It's weird on lots of levels. Maybe the weirdest is that I know anything about it at all. Let's say technology had been different. No Facebook. And she dies. She would've been just like the others on the list at the reunion. I didn't know any of them were sick and dying till I got to the reunion. And I wouldn't have known about this woman.

So we're all getting in touch with each other just in time to watch each other die.