"Act as if what you do makes a difference.": August 2012

Since Phil's death earlier this year, I have been learning about loss and grief. I have not truly sifted through all of the emotions that I am sure are somewhere inside of me; it's a work-in-progress. I go back and forth between denial and acceptance without much attention to the stages in between. I fear for the day when I really roll up my sleeves and deal with it. For now, I don't talk about it. I just write about it. One thing that I have experienced with all too much feeling is the intense desire to communicate with Phil. I miss the experiences, I miss being with him, seeing his face, etc., but most of all I miss telling him about things and hearing his feedback. I miss hearing his ideas and desires and telling him mine.

I dream of him often. It's not the sort of dream where I don't know or think he's dead. He is always dead in my dreams, but in my dreams he has always come back somehow. Once he faked his death. Once he was a miracle of science and came back to life 2 days after he drowned. Once (less pleasantly) he was a malignant spirit who was haunting me. Each of these led to a most unpleasant wake-up

The most dramatic dream was one where we were standing in the middle of a nondescript construction site. In the dream, it was right after Elijah was born (although I had this dream a couple of weeks ago) and two weeks before Phil died.

"I'm sorry your baby was born too early," Phil said.

"I'm sorry you're going to die in two weeks," I said.

We hugged.

He melted in my arms as I woke up, tears burning my eyes.

For all the agony that dream caused me, I could not help but feel that I had actually talked to Phil. I really felt like my spirit had created and sent information and his spirit had received it. Which brings me to the topic of this blog.

**Disclaimer**
For the record, I do not believe in the ghosts of the dead returning or that Phil in any sense was actually in my dream or actually talking to me. I'm sure some of those who read this might believe in such things, and I hope they enjoy the comfort that it gives them, but please don't lose the point of my post by mistaking my meaning. My purpose is only to reflect on a social phenomenon that I have noticed.
**End Disclaimer**

Sometimes people have Facebook accounts or other online presences. Sometimes those people die, and they leave those presences behind. A lot went into Phil's Facebook. Many of his likes, activities, pictures, and other bits of himself were put into a page that became a ready-made memorial site at his death. Suddenly that page was a place where mourners can remember and gawkers can gaze from the privacy of their computers. Acquaintances suddenly know him better than they did in life and the crowds gather to associate with this tragic slice of human drama.

After a while, the crowd subsided and people visited less and we were left with a core of Phil-junkies. We visit his site out of habit, injecting photos and jokes like a drug into our minds, committing new photos to memory and hoping some new part of him is exposed to feed the hearts of those that miss him desperately.

I think some of this comes from the fact that there is now a big, fat period on the end of his life. It's over; he will never do a new thing. Everything he has already done is all we will ever have of him, and Facebook contains a fairly comprehensive overview of the most recent years of his life.

His photo stands beside words he said, responses he gave, messages he sent. In a way, that little avatar feels like him. Statements he made are sealed with the stamp of that little thumbnail, as if it were a political ad: "This message approved by..." We comment and talk about him as if he is still there, on the other side of the computer screen, waiting to respond. So we talk, and comment, and message, hoping that the little messages we send out into cyber space will be heard, much like a scientist sending messages blindly into outer space, hoping to make contact.

There are downsides to this pageantry. One is that there's not a day my heart doesn't stop because I've seen "Phil likes XYZ." Any activity with that little stamp of approval feels like he's still living in the internet, liking things and watching, reading, talking. Additionally, there are those who are offended by his Facebook still being active and people still "talking to him." They complain about this form of mourning; it looks to them like an unnecessary or unhealthy spectacle of people parading their sorrow.

My husband is under instruction to delete my Facebook after an appropriate interval if I die before him. I have no desire for my image to haunt those who loved me. Because that's what it feels like: it feels like the dead are haunting us in the internet. Faces of those we loved with interactions we shared float before our eyes in illuminated images, and photos of them take on a spectral quality.

I have realized that communication is the richest way we have of building relationships. No wonder they suffer so badly when communication is weak. With Phil gone, communication with him is the biggest void that I have felt. I will visit and revisit his Facebook and send him messages until it dies or the internet ends or the Apocalypse happens, hoping with the tiniest sliver of hope that he'll say something.

There is a particular sort of tragedy to unused baby things - especially when they are long unused. They have a sense of longing to them. They were made to hold little bodies, to delight little hands and eyes, to snuggle close to little faces. When a crib stands empty in a corner for months, it could just as well be a black hole or an endless abyss for all the warmth it adds to a room. When toys and towels and blankets sit in a pile in a closet, unopened, unpacked, they lose their color, their softness. The emptiness is heavier because of all the potential missed, all the day-dreams during pregnancy evaporated, all the expectations suspended.

The three and a half months I spent sitting in a hospital room with Elijah feel like some distant, terrible nightmare - only three weeks into being home. We have fallen into a routine that is so comfortable, so natural, so right that I can scarcely remember all the weight that used to sit on my heart. Sometimes when I see him curled up in his bed, I feel a lump in my throat at how much I had longed for that sight. After months of the crib standing vacant and cold, it's a dream come true to see him safe and home. He adds such a warmth and presence to every room that I can't help but be filled with delight. I'm finally getting to be his mommy and not just his visitor.