Sometimes it starts with questions. Anyone heard from Jay lately? You don't really think much of it because it should be normal to be offline sometimes, and good for him, he probably put his phone down for once and picked up the guitar he was talking about earlier.
It's weird, though. People start speculating. I can't get him to answer my texts or calls, either. This isn't like him. He was fine, wasn't he? Was it something I said? People are starting to wonder more urgently. Regretting their part in the argument in the comment thread about guitars that turned political. Wondering if, hoping, he's just mad.
He's gone, someone says, later in the same thread, the one about the guitars.
What do you mean, “gone”? People are more panicked now, if hesitantly. Gone? Like he left the house, right? No. No, he's just gone. Jay is gone. His wife was there. Right in front of his wife.
No one asked how; everyone knows that if you don't already know, you don't have the privilege of asking. That's too far. No one gossips. No one knows.
He's just gone.
His wife handles the funeral. Shares her confusion, her frustration. You read it all because she tags him. Your unheard audio message, sent to him a night or two before it happened, finally opened, a couple months later. She posts a picture with her new boyfriend and her page goes private.
You don't know anything anymore and you never will.
Sometimes it's a procedural announcement. This is his sister, she posts. He lost his battle with addiction last night. She provides the obligatory funeral information. You can feel her distance; her detachment she'll just have to deal with later.
He's finally at peace.
Sometimes it's rallies. It's calls for support and words of encouragement. It's a feed that's turned from normal, banal life updates into a nonstop virtual Walk For the Cure. It's a walk that goes on varying lengths until it stops abruptly, the optimism there until the bitter end when there's suddenly nothing. The updates, the hope, they turn to silence and you wonder, looking through your digital window, if it's happened yet. Because you knew it would. Then, later, a few days later, maybe, the designated family member, posting under her name. She was a fighter, they'll say. She was always ready with a smile.
The kind of person who couldn't resist an animal in need; the local humane society where she volunteered the fundraiser will hold an adoption event in her honor. Gone too soon.
Comments pour in: condolences, lamentations, personal stories, fond memories. #FuckCancer.
Let me know if you need anything.
Sometimes it's like a documentary, a reality show but meant to be tasteful. A multi-year, real-time Truman Show of an event, generously shared with any curious member of the world who wants to witness it. A loving wife and her cheerful husband, taking us along on their journeys, his journey, both for our benefit and for theirs.
Optimism, like before. Steadfast, unwavering optimism and hope. Each treatment attempt recorded, strong smiles in each photo. Waiting room photos turn into infusion room photos, thumbs up, grins, thanks for support. You tap the heart; you can't not tap the heart. You're so strong. You got this!
Let me know if you need anything.
Sometimes it's a somber notice, an old person doing what old people do. Grandma died today. We loved her so much. She was surrounded by family. She lived a fulfilling life. Rest in peace, Grandma.
I'm so sorry to hear. May her memory be a blessing to you.
Once in awhile it's a sudden tragedy, a freak accident, something you'd never have been able to see coming. It's your friend, his dad, you were just reading his recent post about a cool fish, and now he's gone, suddenly and also surrounded by family but not in the way anyone wants. You don't ask there, either. This is a sacred trauma and you do not ask. The post is more emotional, the comments more shocked, the lives involved more changed, horribly, forever. But they have to get through it, don't they? Right? You think about these people all the time. You see how they've changed. You know why. There is nothing you can do. They are still here, somehow.
The live documentary continues but it's not going so well anymore. The cheerful husband, still in the photos, ringing the bell while he smiles in a tired way, much thinner than he was in the waiting room photos. Still stylish, though, never slacking in the wardrobe department.
He isn't much of an online kinda guy so his wife does the updating and you keep reading, keep clicking the heart, keep wondering a little more every day if you should really be seeing all this. These are public updates, you know him even if you haven't seen him in a decade at least, you care about what happens to him. He wants you to know. He wants everyone to know. It's important to know. Right? So you should read this, keep watching. Waiting.
She doesn't stop updating but she does start advocating, more and more urgently. Know the signs, get tested, young men are affected at higher rates than ever, it's curable if you find it early. She encourages you to wear blue all week to show support for her husband. Keep Jason in your thoughts today and schedule your colonoscopy!
Sometimes it's a rapid psychological breakdown you see before the abrupt end. Maybe some of it makes you chuckle at first, not knowing, because it's so unusual, maybe it's a joke, they're a little strange and you never know with them. People start worrying this time, though.
You okay, man? You need me to come pick you up?
Are you sober?
Then you stop hearing anything until someone posts a picture of a new tattoo, his initials. Tearful-sounding tributes, promises to never forget them, their struggle. They rally, too, but too late. Their mourning resembles his demise. They act it out as ritual. They don't know what else to do with it.
There are too many ways to find somebody you love. Sometimes the one who finds them will tell you what it looked like, though, even though you won't ask, don't want to ask, because they will never be the same and they can't carry that alone. No one should see their mother like that but she did, and she'll never be able to forget what she looked like, after those days she was there, alone. The vacation preceding it won't be remembered how it was supposed to be. The guilt will last forever, its sharp edges eroding over time but never fully losing their teeth. Every anniversary is a gut punch.
Let me know if you need anything.
There's only one thing she needs and the impossibility of getting it back will eat at her for years. We remember it with her. It's like we were there. She brought us with her.
The documentary changes scenes. The face that was smiling in the infusion chair and ringing the bell is staring off into the ocean, now, in San Diego, on his favorite beach. Tired. Baggy, stylish clothes, pristine new shoes in the sand, a disappointed but resigned look of peace on his face.
A different tone comes over his wife, the desperation she feels to not lose a second with the love of her life, not one, is apparent now in every post, every picture, every hashtag. The end can't be denied any longer and it's bucket list time, and she's furious. We feel her fury and her heartbreak with her.
He's tired, but he's in good spirits.
You thought this one would be okay because he told you so last time you saw him. You knew he had a drinking problem but he just quit, he said. He was doing well. He's older but he got a great prognosis and with it, a new lease on life.
Two years later your boss shares his obituary. You weren't the only one surprised; no one had heard from him in awhile. They say he was drinking again and they guess it came back.
At least he's with his mother and husband again. That's what he really wanted. He was never the same after that year, they say, with pity.
He made your wedding bouquet. Volunteered, as a wedding gift. You could smell the alcohol on him standing there in front of the computer when he did, putting in a table's order from his server's book, a little too chipper for the morning shift and you wondered if he'd regret, or remember, making this offer. But he's eager to do this for you, to show off his skills after his long career as a florist. You decide to trust him.
They were beautiful and exactly what you envisioned.
Jason doesn't want a funeral, he wants a party. He calls it his I'm Not Dead Yet party. He's a funny guy and he's pragmatic. If you're going to have a get-together about him, he wants to be there.
You want to go to the party but you're 1200 miles away and you're not even sure he remembers you fondly enough to care if you do. Does he recall giving you the bass strings for Christmas that year, fifteen years prior, to thank you for being such a loyal fan? How much you admired his photography and how grateful you were that he and his band let you tag along and take their photos all the time? Would he enjoy those memories or should you keep it to yourself on this wall where they requested them, not pollute it with some trivial, probably childish memory from so long ago when there are more important memories to share?
You decide to post it, anyway, feeling foolish for that being your only offering after passively watching him die for nearly five years.
Maybe it's important, to someone.
I was grateful for those strings when one finally broke on me. You were right; it hurts when that happens.
Sometimes it's just an informative, brief declaration of the beginning of a battle followed by a period of silence before the announcement of its end. They were private and so you forgot to pay attention.
Or maybe you weren't supposed to.
So sorry for your loss.
Let me know if you need anything.
Watchful waiting. The longer the documentary plays the angrier the director gets while the star has given into fate and the audience becomes uncertain. Should I match her anger? Am I allowed anger while hers is so raw and significant? Maybe what they need is a note to say they're in your thoughts. Maybe they want silence. You don't know.
She wants a redo; she wants her husband forever, like they promised each other twenty one years ago.
Sometimes you watch and you assume the worst but it all works out in the end. You're relieved. Finally. Finally, someone made it. All the odds were in their favor, God was on their side, the universe was looking out for them, they still had more to do. Clearly.
Both of her sisters and her best friend are there at the hospital every day posting selfies with her. She's strong. She's a veteran. She will get through this. Keep her in your prayers. Our girl will make it through.
She's in the hospital a long time but the sisters are hopeful. They all look identical, like they could be triplets. She's the youngest and this came as a shock. She's not even thirty.
The updates decrease with her condition. The sisters still post the occasional selfie, but she's unrecognizable, no longer able to control her own movements or speak. She looks like a completely different person and the photos feel like a violation. She was so vibrant; this feels wrong, compulsive somehow, now. The sisters are tired. The best friend is loyal, always by her side. But tired. Everyone is so tired.
It's still a shock when the news comes, so flat and without any of the emotion from the beginning, none of the rallying or hope anymore. No one but the best friend is privy to the silent months preceding this and again, one cannot ask. Everyone is so tired. But she is gone.
Sometimes it works out but not in the way you hoped. They end up disabled or otherwise incapacitated. They don't have the same wit they once had. They're missing limbs they thought they'd die with. They're still smiling. You start to wonder how often she cries, though. You know better. You don't lose that much and stay that happy, not all the time, not so soon. Do you?
Sometimes it's shrouded in secrecy but it gets out, anyway, in bits and pieces. A series of dramatic posts followed by radio silence. A mutual friend DMs you and tells you he's gone. It was drugs, but he wasn't known to abuse any. No one wants to dig further because it's too hard so no one will ever know. His young children, who lost him so abruptly, will never know why. Few people comment publicly. No one tells anyone, whether they mean it or not, to let me know if you need anything.
You read the news you've been expecting inside Hobby Lobby, wandering idly through the aisles.
At 3:45 this morning, Jason passed away peacefully on our couch with Niko at his feet. He was 46 years old. He fought for 4 years, 8 months, and 16 days. He was the love of my life. #fuckcancer #noonefightsalone
You've been watching this play out for five short years. For the next five, his wife will still show up in your feed because, even though you are not Facebook friends, she still tags him in her posts.
She left work for a year. They all understood. She went back to San Diego with Niko and it didn't help, because nothing helps.
Every anniversary — wedding, dating, diagnosis, bad news, party, hospice, death. Each one is harder than the last. He is still gone.
This is the first year she hasn't posted a public update.
An older man you met at a political convention. You didn't know he was sick but his wife started posting from his profile every day, a sort of angel act, disseminating the wisdom of Perry. This is different and you wonder, more seriously now, if you really should be reading this. You eventually unfriend your dead acquaintance so that you don't have to see his ghost every morning next to an unnerving edit of his original profile picture into some kind of billowing, blue angel. People say Facebook is a ghost town and it's true. There are so many ghosts on Facebook.
I don't think I want to watch people die on Facebook anymore.
I got off of Facebook in 2017.
It was a huge relief. Viciousness of the things people felt free to say to me was so unpleasant that it wasn’t worth whatever upside there might be.
It also means I’m one of the last people to hear about it when someone dies. That’s a downside.
I love this. It deserves a wider audience because it’s a pitch-perfect capture of a nearly universal contemporary experience.