No one dies as long as they stay in your gadgets


Jason Calcanis and I have a similar aversion to "erasing" people.

Today in Jason's blog he asks when you delete someone's RSS feed from your aggregator. No, this isn't a question of giving up on someone who doesn't post often enough...which I've done. Or of giving up on someone who writes beautifully about grief but reveals himself to be a wingnut on the opposite of the political spectrum from me...which I've done.

This is serious. When do you delete someone who has died?

Now I haven't had any blogger I know die, so I haven't faced that aggregator issue. But obviously there are contacts in my Palm that contain information I will never use again.

And I, like Jason, don't delete them.

My grandmother is probably the most germane example. Her contact info is everywhere. Her birthday was the day before mine, and there it still sits in my desktop and PDA calendar. Her name was Emily, and I currently have a client named Emily, so I'm often coming across her name next to my client's. I wonder on a fairly regular basis if I should delete her, or why I haven't.

But like Jason, running across her name is a little moment of reminder. A little space in he day when I think of her. Does that mean I would never think of her again if I deleted her virtual presence from my life? Doubtful. I have a picture of her in her 30s next to one of her in her 80s on my piano. But somehow it just seems so final and so over to "delete" her, to "erase" her.

One of those cliches that people say when someone dies is that someone is never gone as long as they live on in your heart.

I think perhaps I've expanded the cliche to say: no one is really gone while you keep them in your gadgets, including iPhoto.

My grandmother as a young woman, and as a woman of 88 holding her first great-grandchild:


Hat tip to Dave Winer for the link.

Posted: Tue - July 12, 2005 at 03:02 PM       EmailFeedback

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