Boxes and a Digital Wake

Image by whatnot via Flickr

Technology Thursday

For many of us, technology has become a thread woven seamlessly into virtually every aspect of our day to day lives. This week, however, I was reminded that along with helping with the mundane details of life, technology can also serve as a bridge to the profound.

Brad L. Graham passed away earlier this week. He was 41. Brad was a friend of mine. We were both early, early webloggers and at the time the community of bloggers was small enough that nearly everyone read everyone else.

My husband was living in St. Louis about the time that this small weblogging community really got going and met Brad a few times then. I met him once or twice when he was visiting DC - once at one of his famous "Break Bread with Brad" meetups. We stayed in touch intermittently through our weblogs and we sent him a Christmas card every year. After my son was born, Brad kept up with him through the Twitter feed I maintain for him and through my Flickr site and often had a warm comment to make. He touched many lives and someone recently described him as the glue that held the early blogosphere together. (He also coined the word "blogosphere", although never cared to take credit for that.) I am, in a way, still reeling from the news of his passing, even though we were really only casual acquaintances. Here's a St. Louis Today piece about Brad, and a bit more lighthearted piece at NPR.

Brad was also an early participant in the community blog Metafilter as were many of the other early bloggers. Many of us have drifted away from Mefi over the years for various reasons. But it was quite moving to see so many of those names from long ago show up in a memorial thread for him. In this way, technology enabled reconnection and remembrance.

Let me quote from a couple of remembrances from old school bloggers.

Thomas Vanderwal:

Brad was one of those wonderful people who seemed to preternaturally walk up to you and say, "I know you" and with in 15 seconds of first meeting him you knew he was right. Brad was a great host when he was on the road traveling, as I joined in on Break Bread with Brad in San Francisco September 10, 2001 and in June in Washington, DC in June 2002 (he assembled about a dozen DC bloggers for brunch and was a great guest and host). Brad was great with stories that had unexpected twists and humor that would have everybody laughing until they were crying. Brad was not only in love with the theater, but one always had a feeling you were part of his always on comedy production and you were the star. He had those type of wonderful gift, you wish you yourself had and wished everybody you knew had too.

Dan Lyke:

I guess part of the reason this has hit me so hard is that he was my age. And, viewed on the broader scope of the world he may or may not have viewed himself as successful, I don't know if he was finding his goals, or worried about the future, but he touched so many lives, and managed to make the world so much a better place because he brought people together, distracted conversations just as they were getting contentious in ways that gently showed the participants that they were angry with themselves, not each other, and managed to draw out everyone.

And, as you can see from reading the thread, the opportunity to remember Brad had some practical implications as well. Matt Haughey (Metafilter founder) stepped up to make sure that Brad's hosting fees were paid for awhile so that his writings will not disappear due to administrative glitches. And, of course, this raises difficult questions about how to ensure that the aspects of our digital lives we would like preserved are taken care of should something happen to us. I've already made a note to update our wills with information on who should be given the keys to our digital stuff (assuming our son isn't old enough yet) if something were to happen to both me and my husband.

But, in the midst of scanning these remembrances, and posting a few bits about Brad to my own Twitter stream, a request came in over another online forum I hang out in. A forum started 10 years or more after Metafilter. My local moms group of about 25 women has a Ning network. One of my friends there sent up a flare asking for boxes to get ready for a move. She's also a friend of mine on Facebook. I sent her an email saying I had some boxes she could have. She sent a note back saying she'd take the boxes, and that she'd read my notes about Brad on FB and was sorry to hear about his passing. I'll see her in person this afternoon and recycle some boxes. She now knows a bit about Brad--something that would probably not have happened without our participation in various social media. As crazy and "cold" and "distancing" as they seem to some, technology-mediated relationships often do allow for connections that would not otherwise be possible.

Finally, Brad himself, a few years ago reflecting on grief:

Who am I to say, then, that I share sorrow or laughter or rage or envy or anything with the ones who survive? I don't and I can't.

What I can say, and did, is this: I'm here if you need anything, and I'm thinking warmly of you and your loved ones. I'm happy to provide a shoulder to lean upon, an ear to bend, or any other body part you think might be helpful.

That's all I, or anyone else, can really do. Be present. If, as Woody Allen quipped, ninety percent of life is just showing up, it must be true that the larger part of friendship, love and support is too.