Is ignorance bliss?
Recently, one of the Christian US bloggers passed away. His blog wasn't one I used to frequent. I read about his death on another blog, then went to this guy's blog, and it was still there, looking as if he had left it for a while and would be coming back at any time to write more. There was no notice about his passing, no indication that anything was amiss.
He was quite a youngish guy, with two children under 10. Nobody had expected him to leave earth quite so soon; from various reports, I gather he fell very ill suddenly and then... was gone.
Life is so unpredictable, isn't it. Nowadays, with blogging and IM and email (and before that, IRC), we forge online friendships with people we've never even seen. If one day, one of us were to pass away, would anyone even think to let the rest of us know? Or would we be left wondering why the person had faded out of the picture and grown so silent, eventually accepting that s/he had probably found better things to do with his/her time than updating a silly ol' blog?
I think the never knowing is kinda sad, in a way. You're spared the necessity of grief and mourning (and it is a weird thing to mourn for somebody you've never met -- happened to me once before), but you also don't get to say goodbye. It's almost like an abandonment. At least one blogger I know has currently just vanished off the face of the earth, and emails to him have yielded nothing. They don't bounce... neither do they garner any reply.
Bob has the login & passwords to my most active blogs as well as my email accounts. In the event that anything happens to me, I've tasked him to do the necessary notifying.
Incidentally, I've always wondered what people will say about me after I'm gone. How I will be remembered, and whether anybody (apart from family and close friends, obviously) will regret my passing. I guess some might think this rather morbid, but in a way, it's part & parcel of wondering whether I've managed to make any real difference in anybody's life.
I don't fear death; I fear not having lived wisely and well enough. I fear I might go without having done the things I'm supposed to do, completed the things I'm supposed to complete, been as good & supportive a friend as I could have been.
That's an indictment on the way I see life: always trying to catch up, do more, achieve more, be a better person, be there for others, fulfil expectations, realise all my good intentions. And I always fall short and feel frustrated with myself, feel almost disgusted with myself... which in turn makes me suspect (worry?) that others -- including God -- feel the same way about me.
Well, I've never denied that I have issues... *rueful smile*