Mortality and the Web

Strange thing… I had a colleague where I work, a friend. We didn’t hang out or anything like that. It was more professional, but at the same time, he knew how to reach people and bring out their good side. He believed in my work, he supported what I did. He opened good doors for me, and he was there when I needed. A friend. This friend was diagnosed this past semester with a form of cancer. After a few months in the hospital, a transplant, and some complications, he passed away…

What called my attention, and made things more “real,” was that he (and later his wife) maintained regular updates on a web site (CarePages). This commercial site was created exactly with this intention: to keep family and friends up-to-date with the development of someone’s health conditions. My friend and his wife have been very consistent in documenting the progress of the situation.

With the age of social networking sites, this site fits very well. After you register on the site, and add yourself as a friend of the person, you start receiving email messages every time a new entry is posted. Then you just need to go to the person’s page to check the entry. So far, so good; other websites and blogs do the same. What has been strange for me is that once you add yourself and start following the posts and people’s replies to them, you become part of the community (not anything new for a social networking site). You celebrate the victories with everybody, and with everybody you feel the pain of the losses. I didn’t know my friend’s wife, but as she kept his story alive through her words, we felt like we too were part of the story. It is almost like following chapters of a book, or a soap opera on TV. The difference is that you know those people on the other side are real. You know the main “character.” The events are happening in real time. You can’t cheat and read somewhere online the synopsis of the next episode. You follow the story as it happens; you live it as it happens. You are fighting along the characters… You become a character of someone’s story.

Keeping track of the development of some news events is a common practice. Keeping track of the developments of someone we know is not strange either. But following my friend’s updates on this site gave me a different feeling. Although I could not do much for his recovery, I felt like an active participant, and that my presence, even as an extra, has been important for his story.

Once I read that by reading a book, a tale, the story of the characters is passed down and through that we keep them alive; we make them immortals. Maybe that was the feeling I’ve had. Maybe the characters of this story are now immortals. But, by being a member of this community, doesn’t it make me a character too?… How much of it is still real?… The web now is making me question our own mortality…