MANILA, Philippines - Receiving the news of a loved one’s sudden death isn’t always as hysterical as they show in the movies. Instantly, there is a moment of doubt; the weight of the moment sinks in like you’re in some kind of a cruel dream. From hereon, everything swirls into an incomprehensible muddle, and there’s really no way of articulating it. It doesn’t feel much like the whole world has caved in on you; it’s more like you’ve stumbled into the edge of a cliff and there’s nothing left to do but throw yourself in.
I don’t have vivid memories of the days surrounding my best friend’s death. I know there was a lot of crying, consoling of friends, and more crying. But one of the things I do remember was the deluge of tweets and posts remembering him. We were part of a generation who was fortunate enough to ease into second lives online. We had LiveJournal and pre-Tumblarity era Tumblr to help us navigate post-adolescence limbo and in our conversations, we always credit these websites for building the relationships that we’ve come to know: friends, lovers, casual acquaintances, sex partners. Everything there is to know about us is online, publicized at least to a certain extent. So when the grind comes to a halt, unexpectedly in his case, we, the living, are forced to contend with his existence online.
The few weeks after his death, I found myself going through our Facebook messages, his blog and all of his remnants online, retracing his final days and regretting I wasn’t there to spend it with him. With each of his final tweet, post, like, or scrobble, there is a knife that slowly slashes its way into me, and I kind of hope that it actually kills me so I can go laugh all about this drama with him.
LIVING WITHOUT HIM
Over the years, I’ve learned how to live without him. I no longer tire myself out in the middle of the night by poring through his blog, crying over every little thing. I’ve learned how to casually mention his name to our friends as if to gauge how we’ve accepted his death. And I’ve learned how not to make everything about him, because I’d like to think he would like for me to live my life as if he were still here (although, by some weird stroke of fate, a few weeks before he died, he did request that I mourn him like Roderick Paulate would in Ded na si Lolo in case he dies — [how exactly] — a conversation I still sometimes go back to because it just sits there on our Facebook archive).
Dealing with grief is ultimately a subjective process, but I’m starting to think that social media is slowly changing those terms. There are phantoms working their way into your newsfeeds every now and then — someone posting on his timeline, someone remembering a book he liked, someone listening to a song he listed to last — the persistence of his memory acts more as a subtle reminder that our lives are forever ensconced in these little pockets as long as there are servers to pump them into circulation. I can only feel for those who have recently lost their friends and loved ones, especially those who have spent their time documenting their lives online. I can only imagine how terrible the feeling is, stumbling into his photo or even hearing his voice leak from the speakers. It is one thing to remember but living with ghosts a monster in itself. We will wrestle with it, but eventually, we will learn how to go through life with it.
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