The Penultimatum

By now, many of you are familiar with the death of Declan Sullivan, a 20-year old student at the University of Notre Dame who died earlier this week when a tower he was standing on collapsed amid gusts of upwards of 50-60 miles an hour. As part of the video and tape team, Sullivan was there filming the football practice for the Fighting Irish. While a horrific and seemingly fluke accident, what haunts me about this death isn't the random nature of the incident, but rather the events leading up to it.

Like many people in this day and age who plan to update their friends and family on their life's changes, Declan was updating his status on Facebook and tweeting about the winds as recently as 4o minutes before his death. You'd think that it would have been the mental image of someone so young plunging to such an unexpected ending that disturbed me, but what really struck me was seeing a screen grab of his Facebook page.

After reading the posts and comments of those people talking to him, I noticed the distinct difference from the top of the page to the bottom. At the bottom, there were wishful thoughts and phrases of excitement for the coming weekend. And at the top, in the more recent posts, there were thoughts from friends AFTER they learned of Declan's passing. As it turns out, in this digital age, we really can blink and go find ourselves on the other side.

I've made no secret of the fact that my Dad has always asked me, "If you died today, would you be happy with the obituary written about you?" He says that if you can answer that question with a yes, then you are living a good life. So in this instance, all I could think of was the evolution of that question. Is it possible that my generation is mastering the art of the evolving obituary? We log in everyday, upload photos of the weekend behind us, and thoughts of optimism for the days ahead. It's a diary entry for everyone to read. It's your thoughts and prayers and accomplishments (and for many, a lack thereof). But for better or worse, it's what you have come to be in this life.

Having a Facebook page is every bit a social documentation in 2010 as Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was in 1781. The only difference is, this documentation is ever evolving. If i died tomorrow, would I be thrilled with the seemingly drunken photos from my birthday? Probably. Because what I remember from that night is laughing so hard that I woke up with a stomachache. And when I think about that weekend now--in the clarity and sobriety of this evening--I was happy. I was really happy. And that's what it all comes down to, right?

So I thought about it a little bit more--as I often do--and I thought about the details of my own Facebook page. I thought about how my book list is so accurate to who I am as a writer, as a woman, and as a contributor to whatever it is we are all doing here. I thought about my list of music and how on so many occasions in this life--even in my adulthood--in fact, especially in my adulthood--I would've been lost without it. And then, inevitably--as I always do--I cogitated it more--and contemplated the finite nature of a Facebook page.

In the case of Declan Sullivan, there will be no more status updates, no more edits to his profile, no new photographs of him getting older. The arc of his evolution is over. There's a novelty to the devastating nature of that fact. His friends will reach the drinking age, the age of marriage, and parenting, and grandparenting, and old age--and they will only be able to remember him from the collage of photos as lately as today. And they, as we all do in the separation in this life and now in a cyberlife, will exist further and further apart from each other. And while there's certainly nothing novel about the tragedy of youth and brevity, the legacy of it is very much unparalleled. There will be traffic and visits to the dead pages, but they will dissipate along with the creators of these pages. It's no different than the halting of cemetery visits that comes with the passing of the decades.

Except for this time--with the age of Facebook and instant communication--it all happens much faster--leaving the residue of a paperless existence to the transient souls who are mourning both the death of a friend and their own laughable pursuit of immortality. But none of it is laughable. Acknowledging a timeline means inevitably admitting an end of that line. Constantly keeping in touch doesn't mean that you won't one day be quite literally out of touch. It just assures that you have a record of how you got there.

They weren't kidding when they said life is short. They were just shortsighted.

Aren't we all?