I am never really sure what to do when a blogger dies.
I mean, there are blogs that I read every day. People write about their family, habits, food, and events good or bad. Eventually, I feel like I know them.
Heck, I feel like I know them better than my own brothers and sisters. Large time frames, years even, will go by and I won't talk to my own family members and find out what's going on in their family, or what they are doing for fun, or what they ate for dinner. I'm comfortable with that, though, and I believe they are too. Or wouldn't they attempt to change things? There's a comfort in having brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and just knowing they are out there somewhere going about their daily lives in the same way I am. I don't wonder how their kids are; I picture my nephew and see him walking around in that familiar strut he inherited from my father. I don't wonder what they are eating; I know what my sister will be making for thanksgiving dinner because it's the same recipes I will be making, handed down from my mother. I take comfort in their presence, no matter how many miles away they are, because I know them.
A blogger though... a blogger I don't know. I start to read a blog and I find it fascinating, because they, someone not related to me in the slightest, are going about their daily routines as well. And... it's so hard to describe, because their routine is the same as mine, but yet so different. So I continue to read, looking for the things, the little mentions that make that person so different from me and my family, or that make that person so similiar to me. And then one day I find myself wondering how they are doing today, or how they dealt with some event or problem, and whereas with my family I would think, eh if they need me they will call, or I should call to find out... with the blogger I can only read what they write. That's it. I can't actually do anything to help. Yet, now I feel like I know them like my own family.
Soo.... how the heck do you define this relationship? Am I really a friend? If I phoned up that person and said, hey, I've been reading your blog for oh... 5 years now, and I'd like to help babysit your kid while you deal with your sick husband, or I'd like to bring you over supper because I know you're bedridden since you broke your toe, or I have some extra red wine I'd like to give you because I know you really like it.... I think that person would think I was a completely insane stalker. Because I probably would if someone approached me like that. At best I am a familiar ISP address, but they certainly don't think of me as a friend I'm sure. Friendship has to be a two way street, doesn't it? Give and take from both parties. So I can conclude that, from their point of view at least, I am NOT a friend.
And then...they die. And their wife posts that they have died. Or their husband dies. Or their child. And... I cry. Like I would if my friend died. But the blogger's wife doesn't know I am sitting at my desk crying. She doesn't know me at all. She doesn't know I read her husband's blog, doesn't even know I exist. And I want to reach out to her and share the mourning process, but....how can I? Write a note that says My Condolences? That doesn't satisfy it for me, and I can't picture how that would be at all comforting to her since, as I concluded, I am not her friend, so why make such an insignificant gesture? What to do?
If it was my family, one of them, their spouse, their children... I would be on their doorstep as fast as humanly possible. That's what family does for each other. I would be there to cook and clean, to sit and listen, to run errands, to be strong while they need strength. For as long as it was needed. This is the level of support I want to express to her while she is in the beginning of mourning, because I feel I know her husband, and her, as much as I know my own family.
But I can't.
I am limited to having a cry at my desk. I can't even phone up my sister or friend and say,...Hey, you know that blog I read about such and such? That lady died yesterday and I'm really broken up about it.....because I'm sure my sister or friend would say, wow that sucks, but why are you so upset? It's not like you knew them personally.
Sigh. We need to define this new, computer-generated age of relationships. Someone needs to set out a rulebook of guidelines, a set of new traditions for the future generations. I wonder what they would be? I wonder what, 50 years from now, the tradition will be for dealing with internet death? Send virtual flowers? A service held in a virtual world like Second Life? A blogger In Memoriam website?
Hopefully someone will come up with something. For now, there is nothing, so I wipe my tears, mourn quietly to myself, and wish my true friend Godspeed.
