I’ve seen it countless times over the years, all the posts and thinkpieces about death in the age of technology, and the digital footprints everyone leaves behind nowadays.
Experiencing it now for myself, it’s... A lot.
I opened the message app I mainly use for talking to family, and saw the message log between me and my dad. It just. Was so jarring. To have that, just, there. I cried at work, thankfully no one else was in the office right then.
F*ceb**k notifies me of those ‘memories with [fb user]’ things. Reminded me his fb profile is still there. I don’t think anyone would know what his login details are to delete it.
Like I’ve kept and still have letters, and cards and sentimental, physical objects from people who are no longer a part of my life.
But it’s different. On the one hand, I am grateful that I’m able to have kept onto more memories more easily, more accessibly, in terms of like photos and videos. Especially since I’m continents apart with half of my family. I couldn’t even be there for dad’s funeral, what with covid and travel restrictions. I couldn’t be there at all. Except on video calls in his last days.
But everything else. The fb, the social media profiles left behind. Idk. They’re things dad’s left behind, and we can sort of still interact with them, but at the same time, not really. And we can’t access it to do anything with it, it’s not anything that can be shared. It’s not the most sentimental in value.
It’s just there. It feels wrong. Feels like a piece of purgatory. Simultaneously material yet immaterial.
