Slipping Away

It was 5am. April 12. We were asleep, groggy, and missed the call, but when I looked at caller ID I knew that it was bad. My husband's brother's ex-wife was calling. At 5am! This had to be really bad... one of only a couple of things. I called her back. It was the most torturous sound that I have ever heard. Never have I heard such desperation, sadness, and panic all wrapped into one voice. Her son. Our nephew. He had been in a terrible car accident, and he was gone. I was stunned. In some ways I think that I still am.

After we got home from the funeral I would check his myspace page ever so often. His friends would post how they were missing him for weeks after he was gone. I would look at his choice for his page's background, the music, his friends, his favorite things. All of it... pieces of who he was and hoped to be. I would look at it every couple of weeks for a while - then I did not. I had not thought to look at it again until today. I was having a sad day... an "I want to surf the net kind of day", so I thought that I would just see if anything had changed on his page. I typed in his name... Nothing. His page would not come up. I felt a sinking feeling inside. He has been gone for almost 6 months, but somehow he is still slipping away. Was his page gone? I googled his name. A few months ago articles about him would come up on the first or second page when I searched this way. Today I had to click to page 6 to find anything about him. Slipping. Finally, by linking through other people's pages, I found his. I was relieved. It is amazing to me that just a couple of weeks ago people posted on his site. They are still connecting to him, his memory, in this technological way. In some way this computer age makes it harder to say a final good-bye but at the same time, there is comfort that comes because of it.