death in a digital age
Thanks to everyone who has called or sent such kind words of encouragement over the past few days. It's been nice to hear.
The funeral went without a hitch — even with clumsy me serving as a pallbearer. The experience was appropriately surreal (as such events tend to be) and I often felt like I was watching the proceedings from a far away place. But I had some good conversations with long-lost country cousins, who filled me in on family histories that I'd either forgotten or been sheltered from.
Now I'm back in NYC and find myself in the odd place of preparing for weekend visitors and forthcoming Pride fest. I'm not feeling very festive right this minute, but I'm glad to have good friends coming for the weekend to get my mind off things.
On an curious side note, I should mention that some of the most moving and sweet messages I've gotten over the past three days came in either text messages sent to my phone or in e-mails. For my grandmother, who died at the (relatively young these days) age of 71, the very concept of receiving written messages on a little computer that I keep in my pocket must've been practically inconceivable. For us, it feels perfectly natural — a convenience we can scarcely live without.
It just struck me how thoroughly technology envelopes our lives, seeping into cracks that we never guessed existed.
The funeral went without a hitch — even with clumsy me serving as a pallbearer. The experience was appropriately surreal (as such events tend to be) and I often felt like I was watching the proceedings from a far away place. But I had some good conversations with long-lost country cousins, who filled me in on family histories that I'd either forgotten or been sheltered from.
Now I'm back in NYC and find myself in the odd place of preparing for weekend visitors and forthcoming Pride fest. I'm not feeling very festive right this minute, but I'm glad to have good friends coming for the weekend to get my mind off things.
On an curious side note, I should mention that some of the most moving and sweet messages I've gotten over the past three days came in either text messages sent to my phone or in e-mails. For my grandmother, who died at the (relatively young these days) age of 71, the very concept of receiving written messages on a little computer that I keep in my pocket must've been practically inconceivable. For us, it feels perfectly natural — a convenience we can scarcely live without.
It just struck me how thoroughly technology envelopes our lives, seeping into cracks that we never guessed existed.
1 Comments:
With Pride Weekend looming,
I'm considering--remembering a column you once wrote--overlooking the entire thing.
Next week is my family's reunion. I don't enjoy going, but my grandmother's generation is old.
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