In December 2008, I lost a dear friend of 26 years. Social Media is bringing us back together again in an eerie way.
Mike was someone I worked for at a law firm in New York City and then worked with as I moved on to a trade association for which he was legal counsel and where part of my responsibility included negotiating contracts.
Mike became my friend, my mentor, my swordsman. He always had my back. It’s a wondrous thing to have a friend you trust that completely.
Ours was an odd relationship. We were polar opposites in many ways, most notably, politics. There is no common ground between the ultra-conservative and the liberal, so we just didn’t go there.
After I left the trade association, he handled a number of legal matters for me, but more importantly, we stayed in touch as friends. Because he had moved from New York City to Scottsdale, AZ and I, to Rochester, NY, our contact was almost exclusively by phone and email. We kept each other updated with news of our personal and professional lives. In the six to eight months before he died, he began exploring social media, somewhat cautiously because of the legal questions it raised for him. As an attorney, he considered the internet “The Wild West.”
For 26 years, Mike was there for me, the older brother I never had. Then one day, he was gone with no warning.
I’ve experienced this type of loss before, but what has made this more poignant, more painful than with other friends I’ve lost is the extent to which we communicated by email and social media.
Even now, 10 months later, his comments still live on my blog and his emails still rest in email folders. How often I’ve wished I could send an email he’d be there to read or that he’d receive wherever he is now.
Just this evening on LinkedIn, I got a notice that someone I might want to connect with recently joined. You guessed it. There was Mike’s name. Sadly, he has – and will always have – only one connection, so recent was his foray into use of this social media tool before his death.
In the past, when friends died we mourned them. We carefully put away their letters and notes, the books they wrote or items they created, to be taken out of safe storage for communion with the memory of them on our terms.
Such is not the case in this new electronic landscape of ours. Friends may pass on, but their ghosts continue to surreptitiously haunt us in this virtual world we’ve created, appearing out of cyberspace when we least expect it. Social media has added a new feature to the face of loss.
Out on a Limb 
What a great post! I have had a similar experience. I had a friend pass away three years ago, and he was a Facebook member. Every once in a while his photo will pop up in my list of friends and it’s quite eerie. It’s interesting, though — every once in a while I’ll look at his page, and people still write on his wall. I guess it makes them feel like they are talking to him. Have you ever seen the site MyDeathSpace? Not sure if it’s still around, but it lists people who are on myspace who died. It’s a bit sick and voyeuristic, but it talks about who they were and how they died, and give a link to their myspace profile. There is definitely going to be more of a fascination with social media and death as social media becomes more prevalent.
Hi Emily –
Thanks for sharing your experience. This is the first time this happened to me and it really kind of knocked me for a loop. I’ve often thought I wished there was a place to write something that would be a tribute to him. I guess that’s what this was, in a way. But equally important, it’s a commentary on a new, unwitting facet to social media.
I wasn’t previously familiar with MyDeathSpace, so I appreciate your sharing.
Thanks again for your comment.
My best,
Carol