Pretty much by definition, one of the recurring themes
of these columns has been an examination of how communications and information
technologies have become an integral part of my daily life. Among numerous
other "personal" topics, I've reported on how the computer has
become a member of our family, on the difficulties
of living without an internet connection even for
a few days, and about how my mother almost succeeded
in learning to master a word processor and e-mail. Over eight years ago, when
the Boidem was very young, I attempted to examine how mourning
and condolences found expression in cyberspace. Over the past six months
I've had the opportunity to do that on a more personal level.
In mid-April my mother suffered a stroke. The first
report I received of this from my brother (who lived very close to her) was
via e-mail. This first report was VERY extensive - primarily because Mark had
his PDA with him (as he almost always does) and while sitting long
hours at the hospital waiting for doctors' reports and the like, he was
able to type his review of what was happening,
pretty much in real time, e-mailing that report to me and to my sister when
he got back home.
In situations such as this people want to stay in close
contact. Though e-mail was our primary source of information, for more immediate
contact the telephone and instant messaging were our media of choice. And between
these two, both Mark and I preferred the messaging for the perhaps idiosyncratic
reason that it allowed us to save the text of
our conversations.
Speaking for Mom was very difficult - her words slurred,
and it was frustrating for her to not be able to express her thoughts. Speaking
with her on the phone, therefore, became primarily a one-way conversation. She
listened, and tried to get out a few words fitting to the topic. The preferred
phone for the times when my sister or I called was my sister-in-law's cellular
which has a built-in speaker. With that phone Mom was able to follow what was
being said without having to hold the phone up to her ear, and Mark could hear
as well, and give some commentary on what was happening when there were lengthy
silences on the other side.
Because Mom was hardly able to speak, most of our communication
with her was one-way. We read her books, watched videos with her, listened to
music, told her stories. Mark prepared a large poster that he put on her wall
above her bed, telling a bit about her life, and suggesting to visitors what
they might speak with her about while visiting. And for at least part of the
time he also moved her computer to her nursing home room where it ran a continuously
looped slide show of digital (and digitized) family photographs that had accumulated
(and continued to accumulate) on her hard drive.
These could be both a topic of conversation for people who visited, and something
for Mom to focus on if nobody was visiting while she was awake.
Three months after her stroke, Mom died. We knew that this
was coming, and had prepared a list of people who should be informed of her
death, and/or the funeral arrangements. This list was divided into those who
should be informed by phone, those by (stamped)
mail, and those via e-mail. This seemed perfectly logical to us - there seemed
to be nothing improper about informing people of her death via any of those
media. And of course we received numerous condolence cards and e-messages -
and read their content without regard to the medium. If years ago some people
still questioned whether e-mail was fitting for times such as this, it's quite
clear that it's now fully legitimate. Mark has been slowly constructing a memorial
site - actually more a celebration
of Mom's life - on his site. Part of it is new material, part links to parts
of his site that were already there. I try to help a bit. Undoubtedly he'll
be busy with other things, and won't devote as much time as he might want to
maintaining the site. As noted, that's sort of what happens with web sites.
So we'll take it slowly, and hope that in this aspect as well, the technology
will be part of our lives.
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