The secret of eternal life

I recently received the reminder for my husband’s sister Florence’s 92nd birthday. The date, August 17, was correct.

I have been receiving these happy notifications for Florence, and indeed for every other member of our mishpocha, for quite a few years, since our family signed onto a birthday and anniversary update list, which is very helpful in urging us to remember those events and send a gift or note. The message comes via email, and since once may not be sufficient for the memory-impaired like your correspondent, there is additionally an inclusion in the events of the month, arriving religiously two days before the actual event. Two reminders for each celebration!

The only jarring note in all of this is quite a sad one. Florence died a bit less than two years ago, at 90. I will not send her a birthday card, and she will never turn 92.

Our technology often has not been compatible with life. And, to tell you the truth, I am a bit spooked by all this. Life may end, but birthday reminders will continue? To whom should they be sent? Maybe stuck onto a gravestone?

I suppose the so-called owner of the list could notify the list service to remove Florence’s name. Since I am not the owner, I cannot. Therefore, the job isn’t done, and my dear sister-in-law lives forever. A real miracle! Advanced medicine couldn’t save her, but a little email message can!

Of course such things never happened years ago, when we all had our more primitive methods of remembering events, which we all also often forgot. Belated became a big word. Less so today, when every haircut or dental appointment is remembered, celebrated, and commemorated by our friends at Google. People sign on for assorted posts, which will continue in perpetuity. When I’m dead, will the recipes I receive from the Times or the updates I get from the Forward keep on coming, along with all my many other free subscriptions? Certainly! They’ll even continue to send me advertisements. Forever turns out to be a really meaningless word.

This year my old and dear friend Sheila died. She and I were real friends, not just Facebook friends. Facebook friends are a category unto themselves. Often the so-called friends truly don’t see or know one another, and wouldn’t even recognize one another in a personal encounter. The friendships just keep on growing, especially in groups. Many many groups. It’s nice to be popular, but it seems pretty crazy to call someone you don’t know a friend.

But Sheila’s family was very thoughtful to me. While she and I had been real live friends since the 6th grade and corresponded, yes, on Facebook, a couple of celebratory times during each year, she lived in Florida and I in New Jersey, and lately we rarely-to-never spoke on the phone and rarely-to-never even exchanged emails. We hardly ever go to Florida, and she hardly ever visited New Jersey. Hence we drifted and became part of a typical Facebook friendship. Tuning into each other’s lives was reserved for major happenings like a birth or marriage or death. There, I’ve said it! I wouldn’t have known Sheila had died if her son hadn’t reached out to me by email and informed me of the sad news. Otherwise, with both of our September birthdays on the horizon, only four days apart, I would be soon sending her a birthday greeting, provided I amstill alive. Maybe it would have been a clue when I didn’t receive a greeting back from her.

But it seems to me that as I rapidly wrinkle, there are more and more missing links on my Facebook pages, people I sort of knew, or once knew, or had met a couple of times, or remember from childhood, or any number of other connections that led us to becoming Facebook friends who might occasionally comment on each other’s posts. Most of us have these sorts of relationships.

For example, I am a Facebook friend of the driver we hired to chauffeur us around the nation of Georgia. After so much intense time in the car together, and the more personal visit to his grandparents, it seemed too abrupt to just say g’bye at trip’s end. So we became friends, with nothing in common, and knowing we will never meet again. But that relationship was so temporary that neither one of us needs to be notified ICOD. You know what that means!

Then there’s a distant relative, a physician, from a Central American country, whom we met, enjoyed being with, and then went our separate ways. I haven’t heard from him for a while. How do I find out if he’s okay?

A friend from high school and I shared politics, no surprise there. Lately she hasn’t been commenting or posting. I know I can ask her daughter, who she frequently writes (wrote?) about and who is on Facebook, but what do I say? Is your mom okay? Maybe she’ll tell me her mom is so busy jetting around the world with her longtime husband, father of the same young woman, that she has no time to write. Or maybe it’s something grim?

One thing I know is that no one, informed of their impending death, decides I better cut off ties with my Facebook friends so they will understand why I’m not wishing them a happy birthday, or reviewing the latest restaurant, or commenting on their political views. It’s just not what people do when they’re about to die. Not on the list.

Of course there’s always Google. We can search for the friend’s name and see if there’s an obituary. That might work but it might not. And it does seem kind of morbid to check whether someone has died.

This seems to be a problem, or let’s call it a situation, for which there doesn’t seem to be a simple solution … .unless, of course, you’re my husband, who totally ignores any type of notification on his G-mail or Whatsapp.

If you don’t read it, does it exist? I suppose not!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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