Goodbye Old Friends

 Social media is always a double edged sword. Always. I've discussed it before, I'm sure. My memory isn't so great now that I'm pushing fifty (did I really just type that??), but I'm sure I have discussed my feelings on social media. 

When I joined Facebook, it was probably in 2008, whenever it opened from just college students to the general public. It was fun; a novelty. Seeing all the people I wondered about from any and every weird walk of life I've had, was cool. Instead of just wondering, whatever happened to so and so, you could just look them up and get reacquainted.

No one warns you about the gut-punch moments though. You know, when it's someone's birthday and you go to their page to send a wish for another great trip around the sun. Or when a mutual friend posts a photo captioned, HOW AM I JUST FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS NOW??? That's when I'm hit with the nausea-inducing realization that the person in question has passed away. I didn't know.

This JUST happened to me, this week. I'm still reeling from the news. It wasn't the first time and sadly, it probably won't be the last. It's just that this time, it was a tougher pill to swallow for some reason. Probably because it just seems so impossible, so unlikely.

The first person, where I didn't find out until well after her death, was someone I worked with in my early twenties. I hadn't seen any comments from her in awhile so I went to her page and I saw all the condolences. I was sad, but I wasn't surprised. In all the time I'd known her, she had never been in good health. She was so fun and funny but I'd left the area we lived, pre-Facebook, so keeping in touch, especially when my life was super messy and I had a flip phone, wasn't easy. By the time we became Facebook friends, it had been years of being disconnected. 

Another death was someone from college. That one stung, not only because he was only a year older than I am, but we'd had some really great, deep discussions on my Facebook page. I had gotten to know him more through social media, in the years since college, than I'd known him when we were there together. I remember something happening in the news, posting about it, and I wanted to know what he thought. That's when I went to his page and saw that he'd died months prior.

One person was someone I only really connected with for a short time through my Jenny Craig membership. She was someone I hadn't had any contact with, in awhile, but I went to her page and it turned out she'd died, SO young, I think in her early thirties, in her sleep. She was a big help to me when I was on the Jenny Craig program and we'd forged a quick friendship.

Two deaths, where I found out about their passing, months after, have really rocked me. One, passed away in the fall of 2019. He always wished me a happy birthday, sometimes on Facebook, but often on LinkedIn. I always shake my head at those on LinkedIn because I don't know how no one realizes that I barely look at that boring site. He did it, always, somewhere, regardless of where. I just looked and he last sent a birthday wish only a couple of months before he died. 

He was one of my first mentors in the tanning industry. He stayed up with me, like all night, at my first symposium, in York, Pennsylvania, where I was going to be speaking for hundreds of people. I was freaking out, dragged about forty-five sku's with me, that I set up in my room, like it was the stage, and did a version of my talk that I was going to do the next day. All I remember from that night and that talk is "Vitamins A, B, D & botanicals". He listened to me, just talk-talk-talking, probably babbling incoherently, about my extreme fear of public speaking. 

To explain a little backstory- he and I worked for different companies. In other companies, I assume they each had territories. They had relationships with the distributors hosting these giant symposiums, so they went to the same symposiums every year. I was the new kid on the block at the company I worked for, AND I worked remote from NJ. The company I worked for was in Arizona, where I went maybe once a year. I didn't have a specific territory, I didn't even have a specific job. I wasn't a salesperson in a way where I wrote orders. I think I was just sent to visit and speak wherever no one else wanted to go, like wherever it was really cold. I remember trying to pump gas into a rental car, for the first time, in negative eleven degrees, in Wisconsin. I never did get to go to the Cabo event, but that's neither here nor there. 

Anyway, back to my friend. He and I were on the same travel schedule, a lot. Sometimes, I'd get somewhere, not see him, and immediately call to ask, "Where ARE you??". Every now and again, it was someone else from his company, and he was definitely missed. 

I was also one of the few females, most of the time, out of the speakers at the places I ended up. I ended up with a little group of, basically, surrogate brothers, who really took me under their wing and helped me out. With this particular friend, we had something in common, that weirdly, a lot of relatively young people we traveled with didn't. We were single. So we had a lot of dating stories and drama to discuss between us. At one point, I'd thought he'd met his person and I was so happy for him. It didn't end up working out though. He, like me, really wanted that stability and I'd always hoped he'd find happiness. He deserved it. Unfortunately, he was taken way too soon. I miss his smile and his, "lets yak". 

The most recent example though, I can't really explain why this one really gutted me. It was just really shocking. He was another mentor from those tanning days. He was only five years older than I am, but he just gave off the old soul vibe. He was actually the first person I met from the company by which I eventually became employed. 

I was twenty-five, at the big Vegas trade show, with my boss at the time, which was also a fluke. I'd had been having a rough time both personally and professionally. I was working at a local tanning salon as the manager, just as a transition, while I figured out my new life. My boss had a fight with his daughter who used to have my position. She would've gone with him, to this Vegas Expo, but he took me instead.

I saw this guy, thought he was cute, and we struck up a quick conversation. I think he invited me inside to a party. I quickly realized we were super different. He introduced me to another guy, and that was that. Cut to about a year and a half later, 9/11, ended up being the strange event that became my entry to working with him, working as sort of a protégé.

In hindsight, I think he would say that he thought of me as an annoying, argumentative, little sister. I was the loud-mouth, super liberal Jewish girl with blue fingernails and he was the conservative, polished, Italian Catholic guy who I felt like just wanted to be contrary. He traveled with me, to get me ready to fly on my own. He also lived in the NY metro area so we both went to events on this side of the country while our counterparts took on the West. 

In later years, after both being out of the industry, we kept in touch on Facebook. One day, I saw a photo of his daughter wearing a camp t-shirt from the same camp E was going to also. I messaged him, confused, asking him whether she somehow goes there. I knew he lived somewhere in NY. He told me his girlfriend was living in NJ and his daughter was going to camp with her children. He called it a "serendipitous coincidence". I told him that if he was ever in Bergen to come visit my store so we could catch up. He said he would. He never did. We both had busy lives and time just passes.

What he did, often, was pose some very controversial questions or statements, on his Facebook page, and I'd thoughtfully but highly spiritedly, respond. The last thing he emailed me was thanking me for taking the time to write. That he realizes my values and opinions are important to me and not just another flippant face booker with no real valid opinions, just insults and insinuations. He said he'd take the time to write back when he could. He never did. 

I'd look at his page from time to time. I liked seeing him happy, seeing photos of his daughter. Also having a child by then, close in age to his, I'd think back to our times in that crazy business and sometimes, it was hard to believe any of it was real. It was a real, strange, trip. We'd discussed religion and politics, deeply. That was the thing though, and I don't know know how we would've faired through the Trump years, as our last email conversation was in 2015, but he was always willing to listen to another side. He might not have agreed, but it never got ugly, which is definitely a rarity these days.

You just always feel like there's more time. You'll reach out when you get a minute. A break. Some extra free time. That time never comes. You put it off and put it off. Then you see someone post an obituary or a tribute, and you feel your stomach drop. Why didn't I just get in touch sooner. Why didn't I say something about a photo they posted. Something...anything?? 

When you find out someone died, months later, via social media, it feels really weird. You scour social media and the internet at large for any explanation because you just can't believe what you're seeing. You're just starting to grieve and the people that knew are already well on their grief journey. You wonder if it's appropriate to reach out to their loved ones to share your condolences and maybe a nice  story or funny memory. It's really hard to process. It's especially hard when the person was young, vibrant, positive. When you just would never expect it to be them in that obituary. 

 I know it can be really hard for families to keep a loved one's social media up after they pass. For some, it's too difficult a reminder. I've had two friends pass, (who I was close to in real life and knew they passed), whose families deactivated their Facebook accounts out of self-preservation. I'll just say that I totally understand, but it's still hard to never be able to see old photos or old conversations etched into history via social media. To me, being able to look back in time like that is priceless. I would give anything to look through those pages and memories.

So, I just want to say some kind of farewell, a Goodbye old friends, to L, C, A, S, and A. You all left a mark on my life that meant something to me. Rest in peace.