A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#1

Post by alexcaps » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
medium.com

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#2

Post by parsnips » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:44 PM UTC

Sucks. I had a friend/mentor pass and not find out for two years as well. I went to his blog, and was wondering why he never finished his house remodeling project... Found his wifes blog and found out about his year long fight with cancer. Life is precious.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#3

Post by jyz » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

Wow. This almost makes me want to reactivate my facebook. Powerful post, bravo!

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#4

Post by snoonan » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

Too true and common. A friend of mine in sales taught me to make sure you reach out to everyone who matters to you in some fashion on a regular schedule. To put it on your calendar. I never gave it much thought outside business, but it's something I'm going to start doing.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#5

Post by buro9 » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

jyz wrote: post #3

Wow. This almost makes me want to reactivate my facebook. Powerful post, bravo!

Strange, it makes me feel glad I actually phone my friends.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#6

Post by weeksie » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

I come from a fishing town in Alaska and a year or so ago all of the people from my hometown started to show up on Facebook. I had been away for a very long time, lived all over the world, and only just started to get back in touch with my roots.

Fishing is dangerous work. Over the last year I slowly learned how many people had died. I learned about more when I finally went back up to visit. The fisherman's memorial was a tough thing to walk by. It was even tougher to hear that people I had loved had died one, two, five years earlier and I had no idea.

Life is short. Maintain those friendships.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#7

Post by clarky07 » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

I haven't had this happen, but something similar. One of my friend's dad passed away while I was away for college. This was before Facebook and since we went to different schools I didn't end up finding out for 6 months or a year.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#8

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#9

Post by garbagewatch » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

Why in holy hell is this on hackernews?

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#10

Post by mathattack » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 6:57 PM UTC

parsnips wrote: post #2

Sucks. I had a friend/mentor pass and not find out for two years as well. I went to his blog, and was wondering why he never finished his house remodeling project... Found his wifes blog and found out about his year long fight with cancer. Life is precious.

Indeed. When my 10 year high school reunion came, we were surprised by several "Who knew?" instances of people passing away. It was always people 2 removed. With social media the amount of people 1 removed is closer, and it's easier to contact folks, but it's still a surprise to hear about young folks in that "see every year or so category" go. It's a shame when it's cancer.