It has been about a year and a month since I lost a friend to cancer. She was a brave soul who endured agony before she passed away.. She was young—at least I look at her that way since she graduated the same year as me from high school, and I’m not old, right?
It is somewhat weird that Facebook pages never die .. We can pass from this existence, but the words and ‘likes’ we had will remain so as long as Mark Zuckerberg and the NSA permit it..
My friend’s name was Lori.. I visited her Facebook page the other night and realized that people were still actively posting messages to her.. sending love .. actively asking for her to help them. Grieving never stops, perhaps.. And maybe with technology it is evolving. Does it help or hurt to be able to constantly go back to someone’s Facebook, or Twitter, or blog? After all, a visit to the page could make it seem like they’re still here, somewhere.
And maybe they are.
Alexander Graham Bell often visited seances. Some think his invention of the telephone was meant to help the deaf.. others wonder if Bell, like all of us, were searching for a way to speak to the dead and ponder an afterlife. The mystery of EVPs has been around for centuries.. are they recordings of ghostly apparitions, wandering the earth? Or are they just a recording of the endless loop of life—a recording of what we say that replays over and over again? We are told by paranormal ‘experts’ that Bell had those questions. He didn’t find an answer—but his invention led us to years of creepy stories of the dead calling their loved ones after they left the earth.
I wonder how long until we hear from people who claim that the dead updated their Facebook accounts.. I wonder how long until the dead do it—if the dead are powerful enough to do such things.. And that takes into consideration the fact that an afterlife would be existent. And if there was one, it would have to have a few dull moments that people would rather update a Facebook status as opposed to playing musical instruments with angelic figures…
I don’t say this in mocking. As a matter of fact, I am quite surprised that there are no movies or scary stories to tell in the dark regarding Facebook, or Twitter.
It is a little eerie to me to visit Lori’s Facebook page a year and some time later after she lost her battle to cancer.. The photos of her struggles remain.. her hometown remains, as though she’s still there. Her profile picture remains.. as though it’s still current. And the messages to her are continuous, as though she is still alive.
It’s the new way we deal with grief and pain. And there is nothing wrong with it. Any way we try to cope is healthy—it shows we are actively trying to get a hold on our emotions and become mentally stable with the tragedy that life can be..
Alexander Graham Bell was quoted once as saying this,
I have been thinking for some time of a machine or apparatus which could be operated by personalities who have passed on to another existence or sphere. I believe that if we are to make any real progress in psychic investigation, we must do it with scientific apparatus and in a scientific manner.
Maybe one day that apparatus will be Facebook….when a lost soul responds to friends who miss them. Just imagine that premise next time you post a message on a deceased friend’s wall…
