What to do with dead Facebook friends?

I see dead people, stalking around Facebook like regular people. Some of them don’t know they’re dead.

In the most advanced levels of civilization and technology, I find myself more connected to the past than ever before. The dead, they’re all around, in various states. Between my known dead, and the obituaries and odes, I whistle past my own cyber-cemetery everyday

There are the gone too young people, I currently define this under 60 ( I imagine my perspective will change as I age. ) They’ve died of cancers, aneurysms, vehicle accidents, or living too hard for too long. Some of them know they’re dead, and had time to prepare, as bad an endeavor as that is. Among my prepared dead, there were those that went steadfast and resolute, and others that went out kicking and screaming. I don’t have a preference for one style over the other because they both suck. I don’t know what I’d do.

Others went so fast, they never knew what hit them. There’s comfort in that. Most the sudden deaths, died alone which sounds worse somehow. Deaths have their pecking orders.

I’ve never defriended or unfollowed the dead. Why is that? Do I expect them to reach out from the great beyond and check in via Facebook? Is it my Ego wanting to keep my friend numbers up? Do I want to keep them updated on the latest concrete goose fashions and feral cat escapades? I twinge and smirk annually as some of the living who have not been paying attention wish them “happy birthday”. That must be a shitty thing to realize you’ve done. I keep the dead around because I agree with Hemingway:

Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal. – Ernest Hemingway

I have a special dead day, when three of my dead share a birthday. I never remember when it is, but the hair on the back of my neck stands when it pops up on my timeline each year. I like the deaths concentrated a little so I can rip through them fast like a bandaid.

I’ve got some other special dead. They’re an eclectic group people.

There’s the friend that called me every year on my birthday for 15 years. I recall wondering if he’d call on my last birthday. He didn’t…he died that day. I’ll never forget him.

Some of the dead pop up in my friend suggestions. There are people I never knew, but we have a many mutual friends. I wonder how I never met them alive, we have a lot in common.

There are dead friends that are friends with each other, but I had no idea they even knew each other. I would love to find out how my dead friends met. I noticed this connection when the first one died, but I was never courageous enough to ask the second how he knew the first, because he was busy fighting for his own life at the time.

I have a dead friend request from someone who I never knew. I just let his request sit out there in limbo. It’s nice to be wanted.

There are the deaths I’m informed of almost everyday. I normally read the linked obituaries. Sometimes I’m please to see a life well lived by an octogenarian who left nothing on the table, guys who fought wars, raced horses, ran businesses, climbed mountains. I wish I could have sat down for a beer with them and listened to them talk. I’m sad that many great stories died with them.

I’m also informed of tragic deaths, kids dying under unbelievable circumstances and diseases leaving families devastated. Following a suicide or overdose, the amount of grief unlocked is torturous, while some stop mentioning it quickly, others opening mourn for years.

Now on top of the human deaths I have to pile on the pet deaths. The one I played fetch with, the fuzzy ones, the big ones, the hit by cars, the pets I’ve never petted, but felt I knew. Strangely when people post about their dogs and cats, usually it’s usually some of their best writing. It appears death inspires some of the best work. Either that or it’s me, and I don’t like death.

I imagine there’s some corner office, C level social media executive attempting to algorithm deaths for profit. My back of the bar napkin calculations seem to indicate that if you live long enough most of your friends will be dead, which is just like real life. The only way to keep the balance of living life is to add new people to your collection of friends, which is just like real life.

Tonight I’ll re-watch the “Sixth Sense” while I like & comment on peoples’ posts so they know I’m alive.