Thought Provoking Question #13

Internet Death in Cyberspace  

If we could know  
Which of us, darling, would be the first to go,  
Who would be first to breast the swelling tide  
And step alone upon the other side—  
If we could know!  

                           Julia Harris May (1833–1912),  
                           U.S. Poet, If We Could Know  

When Yitzak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel was assassinated several years back, much of the world paused in shock and grief. Many of us who watched Rabin's Middle East peace process unfold, held high hopes that just maybe an everlasting peace might indeed finally be developing between Jews and Palestinians. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one suddenly, whether by accident or violence or by happenstance or plan knows that helpless emotional soup of anger, love, fear, shock, and numbness which often follows. Thank God for electronic mail--email for short.  

I'm really no great fan of the Internet, for every time I use it, which is daily, I feel emotionally frustrated. I feel like I'm trying to find myself around LA with a New York City travel map. I find the sights along the way filled with faceless chat rooms and people's descriptions of themselves as accurate as asking people how long the Mississippi River is. Web Pages on the WWW are mostly under construction and when you finally do get the Internet address correct you often receive an error message. But I have found email a saving grace. How many times, I cannot remember, that I have used email to unload an emotional barrage upon some unforgiving, though not all-together unsuspecting person. With the America Online (AOL) Internet carrier system, you can retrieve back an email you have sent as long as the person who you sent it to has not opened it yet. The Internet gods knew this would be a good feature for we mortals. Many times I have sent email in anger late at night. And many times I have kissed my false image of email God come morning when I was able to retrieve back my email from cyberspace hell before my victim had clicked on and read it. Thank you email god!  

When Rabin was assassinated, I attended a kind of email funeral. The media announced that a web site had been set up on the Internet and that email condolences were being accepted on behalf of Rabin's family and Israel. It was kind of a cross between a wake, where you sign in and view the body, and sending a sympathy card without having to go to the Safeway supermarket and get one. email helped me through my grief and mourning without having to put on a dark suit and drive. Digital Wakes don't require that. I sent what I believe to be a genuine and caring email to this kind of email memorial, this kind of email funeral. I felt better from having sent my cyber-eulogy. My grief was addressed and my mourning had been acknowledged. I knew I could not bring Rabin back, but I could acknowledge Rabin's life, and in so doing, acknowledge the importance of the peace process in this life now. And that is good.  

More recently a colleague of mine died. He was a whimsical type of guy who I only knew on the Internet from a favorite chatroom of mine. He was always uploading (sending) funny things to all of us on his "cc" list. I would faithfully download them and chuckle. He was a bright scientist working on an AIDS cure. He lived in South Carolina and his southern charm even came through all the distortions and static of Internet connections. The cure will have to wait a tad longer, I guess, because AIDS got him first. His computer screen name was "Legs" because he said he could get around on the World Wide Web better than anyone else, and indeed he could. He had the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon when it came to teaching his cyber-buddies how to make sense out of the Internet and truly begin enjoying "surfing the web." It was Legs who told us all he was going to make millions building restrooms along the information superhighway. "When you've been traveling all day, surfing all day and nature calls," said Legs, "people will need and use my "virtual restrooms." Aside from the amusing quality of his comments, none of us doubted for a moment his capabilities for achieving such pit stops.  

When I received an email that Legs had died of AIDS, I was shocked. He never spoke of illness or anything but the brightest side of hope. I later learned that during his last months of surfing the Internet with us cyber buddies, he surfed by laptop from his sickbed. Life ebbed away from most of him daily, except from his fingers and mind. For months we his cyber friends conversed and chatted about Legs. I wished I had gotten a picture of him. I wished I had met him. I wished he were still here. So what the heck, I said many months after his death, let me email Legs and ask for a picture and ask how he's doing in cyber heaven. I sent the email as some sort of cathartic release and ritual. I told Legs how much I loved and missed him, and like some NASA rocket blasting off to the edge of space, pushed the button and sent my email to Legs. Some weeks later an email arrived with a GIF (computer generated digital picture) attached. The email advised to download and open immediately. As I did so, up on screen a picture slowly materialized of a very handsome 30ish guy. At the bottom of the picture was the name Legs. I was shocked. I immediately sent email to Legs' old email address. Within seconds my system acknowledged that my email had been sent. I could have received a message stating "Undeliverable at this time, please check your email address," but I did not, so Legs must be alive and well in cyberspace. I felt good to know that Legs was where he had always been prior to his death of flesh. This is a very important concept. If Legs is where he used to be in cyberspace, and I can still email him there, who is to say he is still not there now? Is Legs' memory in cyberspace any less real than his presence in cyberspace? The Internet is a virtual grave anyway, much like an intensive care unit where mechanical whirling, spinning, and humming machines valiantly try and keep a patient alive who has died hours ago. These techno-heroic machines know neither life nor death, and as such, neither does the Internet.  

I care not to logically figure out this great joy completely yet. All I know is Legs sent me a picture! I am now a true believer. If there is email, there must be afterlife, and therefore, there must be God! Is there an Internet Heaven too? Legs always said: "Goes around comes around!" And so it is.  

[This article is by Dr. J. Davis Mannino and originally appeared in the community newspaper We The People or elsewhere. All Rights Reserved by the author.]