Lost Friends

March 30, 2015 / Lisa / 1 Comment

Do you ever think about people who have crossed paths with you over the years and wonder where they are? Have you ever had a transitory moment with a stranger and left thinking they could have become friends?

That happened many times traveling. Someone met on a train, a brief conversation in a bed and breakfast, those moments when there was a click, a recognition of the other, a knowledge that if there was just more time…

I’m not sure that happens as much these days as it is so easy to give an email address. I wonder if this generation misses out on the mystery of those ‘what if’ questions.

Then there are those we have lost contact with. There is never an end to those stories. We don’t see how they grew up, who they became, how they maneuvered through life. We’re left with occasionally having something remind us of a person in our past. We spend a few moments wondering where they are and who they are, and then we immerse back into our busy lives. These days we might even take a moment to type their name into a search engine.

When I was young, there was a boy. I’m only going to use his first initial. K’s mother was a friend of my mother’s. Even though K was my age, mom seemed to think he needed watching after. Or maybe she thought I just needed to make up for past treatment of him. Supposedly, when we were toddlers I would get in K’s face and scream loudly just to make him cry.

I remember one day, about age seven or eight, and mom sent me to the local grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. This was in Seattle in the 1960s and the store was a couple blocks away. These days I’d be labeled a ‘free range’ child and hauled into foster care and my parents prosecuted. But I digress.

Mom made me take K along and made me hold his hand. I don’t know if she was afraid he’d wander into traffic, get lost, or what. On the way we had to walk by my ‘boyfriend’s’ house. If you can have a boyfriend at that age. N was furious, yelling at me that we were never going to get married because I was cheating on him. Seriously. At age eight.

K was terrified.

N grew up to marry young and divorce, then marry again and divorce again. I lost contact with his family years ago.

Back to K. There was also the time mom made us play Candyland on the back porch on a sunny day. We played 26 games. I won 23. K cried. I got in trouble for not letting him win.

The thing is, he was a nice kid. In our teens we got along fine. But we lost contact in later teen years. I mean, the only glue there, was the friendship between our parents. He grew up and moved away as did I.

I did hear that in his twenties he was living in California, had a job as a banker, and was in a very happy relationship with someone and that they hoped some day to be able to marry.

Which is why I’ve been thinking about him lately. Wondering if finally, way too many years later, now that we are moving into a period where gay marriage is finally being allowed legally, if K is married and happy.

Okay, I also wonder if he has nightmares about a kid screaming in his face, or giant Candyland board games haunting him.

So many people who have passed through our lives, touched them so briefly, left an impression, a sense of opportunity lost, or even, in the case of N, a sense of relief they are gone.

Life is so fleeting.

Being Anonymous

March 9, 2015 / Lisa / Leave a comment

Why is the promise of anonymity so powerful?

From a writing standpoint I know all the reasons authors write under pseudonyms, not the least of which is the need for their families to not see what they are writing. But I’m wondering about this from a more generalized standpoint.

This past weekend my husband told me about a social media site called Whisper. People can post similar to Twitter or Facebook, but completely anonymous. I told him I found that rather creepy. He said some people need that in order to talk honestly about depression, identity, etc.

That makes me wonder about a society where we need a safety net of anonymous in order to be honest about who we are. In an ideal world that net would not be needed. But of course we are far from an ideal world.

With that said, I still find Whisper creepy. Maybe it’s the name. A whisper implies something secretive, sneaky, maybe even slightly cruel. After all, why whisper unless you don’t want someone else to hear? Remember those awful middle school and high school days when you’d be walking down the hall and see two kids whispering and giggling and know, just absolutely know, that it was about you? Remember that feeling in the pit of your stomach? That’s what the word ‘whisper’ implies to me.

Which brings me back to my initial question. Why is being anonymous so powerful? Why does it allow you to say or do things, or for that matter to post photos or behaviors, that you would not do if your name was attached? In a way it lowers inhibitions. So why are inhibitions lowered simply because your identity no longer exists?

I understand there are instances where personal safety could be seriously compromised if your name was visible, but I’m thinking here more about societal norms than politics, terrorism, racism, etc. Anonymous simply for the sense of power, not for safety or causes.

I don’t understand, and possibly because of that, I am going to strive to always sign my name, and if I’m doing something I don’t want my name attached to, then I better think twice about what I’m doing and why. Otherwise I may lose my identity by the simple act of not claiming my identity.

Confession

October 15, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 2 Comments

I have a fascination with obituaries. No, this isn’t a Halloween post. I go to newspapers online and read them regularly. Having grown up in the area, I recognize old family names and sometimes even the person. Sadly sometimes this has been the only way I’ve learned of the death of someone I knew.

Here are the things that fascinate me though.

The names. Obituaries run the whole gamut from plain John Doe to multi-hyphenated, multi-cultural, multi-syllable names. I’ll see a beautiful, unique name for a woman who died in her late 90s and wonder what the story was, how she got such an unusual name for the time period of her birth, what her parents were thinking, how much she was teased or envied in school. And what she thought. Did she wish for a change, was she proud or embarrassed?

The photos. Sometimes I wonder which family member was allowed to pick the obituary photo out. Some make me imagine the result was a huge knock-down all-out fight in the funeral home. Photos of an elderly person who died are rarely current, but most often of their early days. Why? Was someone ashamed of wrinkles? Photos of elderly people looking every inch their age, and every inch proud of it. The kind of old person you’d want to hang out with. Photos of young people that are heartbreaking – those hopeful expressions looking out on a whole life ahead of them.

The wording. A while back there was an obituary flying around social media that had been written by an elderly man before he died. Wish I could find that again as it was honest and hilarious. Some obituaries are stilted as if from a funeral home template. Someone just filled in the blanks. Some make the person sound so wonderful, kind, and perfect, that you want to gag. I’m sure, when reading those, that either the family member was severely biased or seriously hiding some deep dark secret. A secret I now want to know.

And finally, my greatest source of frustration: the cause of death. I see this person’s photo, I read their name, I read the testimony. I now feel connected in a small way. But I have no idea how they died. The story is incomplete. When the person is elderly you can assume simply old age. Although I remember the shock reading the obituary of a 89-year-old woman’s death from base jumping. I’m sure the family listed that cause of death out of pride. And rightly so.

Another place where the cause is rarely listed.

When the piece, though, says ‘died unexpectedly’ I’m lost. Sometimes the obituary will say that in lieu of gifts donations can be made to a cancer society, or a mental health agency, and I have the clue I need to fill in that lost feeling. But it’s like reading a story with no ending. And then I find myself wondering, what’s the big secret? Was the person killed in an act of violence? An act of stupidity? An act of futility? I start imagining scenarios that might match the name, age, and photo. Heart attacks, fishing accidents, drug deals gone wrong, a sad, long illness, and so on.

And I don’t want something basic, like ‘died of a sudden heart attack’. I want something like ‘Died of a heart attack while climbing Mt. Ranier’. When there are no details I imagine the cause being ‘Died of a heart attack while eating a king size candy bar sitting in front of the TV.’ An obvious reason not to post the cause for the whole world to see.

I think what the fascination boils down to is reading tiny short stories. Little snippets of someone’s life. I end up with a brief moment of connection, empathy, loss for having never known the person, and loss that the stranger is now gone from the world.

And I end up with no end.