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August 27, 2009

Grandfather

Yesterday, Papa gave my cousin and me a lecture on the evils of electronic communications. First it was texting. "All you kids text every day, all the time, text text text text text." "Papa, it's hardly-" "Oh, yes you do! You text people you hardly even know! Why I read in the paper-" "I don't know about everybody else, but the majority of kids I know don't text that much." "Well my newspaper said they text constantly. Always. And Everyone. They even text strangers!" he told us with an air of finality. "And then there's this facebook and twitter. What's the difference?" My cousin started to explain, but her cut her off. "They twitter everything! And facebook is not private. Why, I read in the paper that..." blah blah blah, on and on and on. Apparently, everything he reads in the newspaper is true. Opmin would be disappointed.

Today, I looked at Bristol's facebook page. Her brother died a few days ago, and the whole profile is now covered in messages of condolence, that people are "sorry for [her] loss" and are "praying for [her]" (Yes, I can properly MLA format quotes from facebook). Margot and Christoph actually wrote the exact same thing (although Christoph wrote it first). George's blurb was uncharacteristically eloquent. I would write something, but I think anything I say would sound fake. I am sorry for her loss, but I'm more sorry about her brother's life being cut short, since I barely know her, but I barely even knew him, so lord knows if he had a life worth living, but I still feel badly, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to actually express all that.

4 comments:

Robin said...

There can be worth in Facebook, or any other way that keeps people in touch with goodfriends and w/ people whom one hardly knows. If you decide to comment, even if much later b/c heaven knows it's not as if her brothers passing is just temporary, you can always say that you're at a loss for words but am sorry for the life cut short and her loss. Or not.

Gretchen said...

who's robin?
i saw an article about that in the paper and online.

ec said...

invasion of the debras!!!

Tea said...

I only saw the articles in the paper. I have no idea who Robin is, but she seems perfectly friendly. She hasn't called me an unintelligent hater of the proletariat (or whatever she said) yet, which is a plus.