Facebook notifies you it’s her birthday and you
jauntily scrabble over to her page to wish her a great one. it’s been a while
you spoke to her, three months or so, but she’s one of those people you
reconnect with even when you have not chatted for ages.
It doesn’t matter that you’ve never met her because she lives
halfway across the world, you hold a little hope
that you will see her someday when you travel far and wide and touch down on
her city, maybe meet her in a quaint roadside cafe and hold a long rambling
conversation because you want to hear her say familiar words in an exotic
accent.
You are on her page and Just before you type a
birthday message your hand freezes. instead of birthday messages all you see
are farewell words; RIP, I miss you, I can’t stop crying, still can’t believe
you are gone, you were the best…
It hits you that she’s dead. you scroll down and
discover she died a month ago, a Facebook post from her friend says she died in
a car accident.
in disbelief, you scroll through her pictures, a
gallery of moments frozen in time and you try to unravel the mystery of death
but come up with no answer.
You drop a message for her family who seem to have
taken charge of her profile. Outside your room you can hear the faint buzz of a
radio intermingled with the feathery gurgle of a child’s laughter and it feels
like you are hearing those sounds for the first time.
In the surreal moments that follow you remember a
quote by Maya Angelou; ” I’ve learned that people will forget what you
said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you
made them feel.”
In a web space filled with hateful people, she made
you feel loved and you’ll never forget that…
