Sad
It's strange having online friends because sometimes you don't know a whole lot more about them than that you like them. I have had a friend for some years, Mike Lang, who often visited my blog and commented and wrote me the occasional email. The last time I heard from Mike was in February - he kindly sent me a bunch of books for my new kindle. I wrote back but didn't hear from him. I wrote again and still no reply, but I thought he was probably just busy. Recently my sister wondered if Mike might be ill - he had some health issues - and so I wrote to him again but his email address was no longer active. That really concerned me and I began searching the web for him. Tonight I found what might be his obituary, one which says that a Michael Lang died last February. I don't know if it's him :( If anyone out there does know Mike, I'd appreciate any information.
posted by crystal | 2:07 AM
11 Comments:
That's too bad about Mike.
A hard way to lose a friend.
I gave my daughter my blog password and asked her to tell my readers if I should die suddenly.
Good luck Crystal and I hope that your continued search will bring a better result and I only say that because sometimes sad mistakes are made in obituaries. Long story short, a relative of my wife was found dead out of town in an obituary and it was really upsetting when this person heard about it.
Whatever the case might be God Bless you both.
Peace
Thanks, you guys. Hopefully some news will turn up.
Crystal, I'm really sorry, if the Mike Lang whose obituary you've found is your e-friend. This is an aspect of the Internet that I think we haven't thought enough about.
Not too long back, I decided to fill in some current information on branches of my family tree, where I had lost touch with the living generations and their descendants. This led me to discover that a cousin of mine (her mother is a first cousin of my mother) had died a year or so ago of cancer.
I had lost touch with these cousins, due to a family upheaval. It was intensely sad to find that this cousin, who was younger than I am, had died of cancer. I also learned from googling her name that she spent the final year or so of her life, after she knew she was dying, compiling an extensive and well-researched report for the Oklahoma legislature to encourage them to give better care to homeless people in their state.
The Internet connects us in new ways. And in doing so, it also provides us with new ways of learning about the loss of people to whom we've been connected.
I enjoyed Mike's good humored comments and his blog (thanks to you) Made me want to move to NM. Hope all is well.
William,
Thanks for commenting. It is strange how we can know both more and less about people because of the internet. Very sad about your cousin. I had a similar experience with my father who I never really knew. Looked him up and found he had been dead for some years. It was hard to know how to feel about it.
Richard,
So you remember Mike? I'm sad to say that the obituary I found does sound very much like him - same state, same wife's name, same religion, same age :( The obituary is here, for anyone who might want to read it - it's a list of many names and the nam 'Michael Lang' is about half way down the list .... http://www.mvtelegraph.com/2012/03/08/obituaries/
Thanks for mentioning this. I wrote a blog post a while back after a good friend died on preparing for the death of my digital self. My wife or kids will post something on fb, but I have a few blogs that I frequent where I have really gotten to know some folks and developed meaningful relationships and I would like to know if something significant happens to them, and vice versa. Maybe someone should develop an app so that one could just post one notice and it would go out to our entire virtual community? Still here and obliged.
Hi Daniel,
I don't go to facebook so I think I miss a lot of communal news that way. I've asked my sister to mention it on my blog if I suddenly die too. Have you seen this "if i die" app for facebook - kind of grim and funny at the same time .... http://youtu.be/sdzCELofGgE
Very funny and at first I thought yeah that's a good idea but then it started to seem a little creepy. When the time comes, I think I'll just let people figure it out, that way I can attain a bit of virtual immortality, maybe my daughter will agree to update my FB status from time to time.
Virtual immortality :)
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