Invisible Fist

(Note: this blog was written nearly six years ago. It’s not all related to any of my circles; IT, content management, education, etc. It describes a defining event in my life, that I had been thinking about a lot recently as I have read a book that I had originally sent to my nephew. Also, I have a lot of cynicism, mostly about the building collapse in Bangladesh, that I need to let out; rereading and reposting this blog was rather cathartic).

Several Sundays ago, I was jarred awake by the telephone. My wife yelled upstairs for me to pick up the phone immediately. On the other end was my brother who called to inform me that our nephew Josh had been murdered after a fight broke out at a party he was attending.

A man left the party and returned with a 9-mm handgun and shot Josh in the back of the head. He died on the helicopter. The reaction that seemed to fit my anger, resentment, frustration, and immediate feeling of loss was “Awwwww Fuck!”

Josh had been no stranger to trouble and liked a good brawl, so I made some assumptions about the type of party he was at and his behavior that evening. Turned out that the party was for a long-time friend of the family who had just gotten her master’s degree.

Details are still hazy, but it appears that Joshua might not  even been involved in the fracas that preceded the shooting. I just hope the shooter pleads guilty so both families can avoid a trial. However, there is always a sleazy attorney out there willing to give the Twinkee Defense a whirl.

Josh was a great kid. He was funny, athletic and exceedingly smart–other things that you’ve heard about a man who has died too soon, apply.

He was not a good man.

I’m not talking about the drug dealing. While I no longer have a need for dope, I think the straightest path to neutering the drug trade is to change our approach on the supply side; we should make the stuff–yes, coke, heroin, etc.–exactly as legal as Budweiser. Drug-related crimes would end the next day. The money that is currently spent on “the drug war” could be applied to the demand-side problems. Anyway…that could be another blog entry.

The problems I had were the fights, the threats, the bling, etc. The fact that his diction had degraded into a barely intelligible mutter of street babble. That he showed such disrespect for his parents, and that he blamed them that he never amounted to anything. And I kept hearing stories that he beat his girlfriends.

Not a good man.

He grew up in a family that had dearth of money and an abundance of kids. His parents spent far too much time trying to interact with god and not enough time trying to interact with their offspring. As happens in those situations, the kids are raised by the TV and subsequently by the neighborhood. Still, he had enough second chances, that he could blame nobody for his own path, but himself.

I attended the funeral in Florida. I cringed early because of the high level of phoniness and whistling in the dark. Several people spoke how Josh was “in the process of turning his life around,” and “on the verge of converting to Christianity.” The minister of the church sent out a message that it was never too late to turn one’s life around, because no matter how hopeless, or vile your life, all you had to do was to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior and you were guaranteed a place in Heaven. In fact he was sure that Joshua had done just that before he died.

Somehow I don’t think that theory of just-in-time repentance–which holds that you can mess up as much as you want as long as you make good before Judgment Day–really applies. It doesn’t seem like a man who was shot in the back of the head really had the time, or the wherewithal to repent his sins.

By their own standards, Josh is bound for Hell. Yet, they–the clergy, the parishioners– refused to admit that their own interpretation of the gospel had condemned him. Instead they kept crowing that Josh was a prince of God, that he was taken by Satan, because was “going to be a Christian leader” like his Biblical namesake.

It’s convenient that the players are allowed to change the rules of the game while its being played. I guess that’s how people of faith find comfort.

I didn’t know the bad-man Josh all that well. I have an abundance of vivid memories about the good kid. I will miss Josh every single day for the rest of my life.

There is no comfort for the faithless.

The Blue Swede cover of this song was among my favorites as a young ‘un. This -a cover of the Blue Swede cover- is among my favorite recent YouTube discoveries.

In rose-colored reflections of my past it seems that the world today is suffering from a chronic deficiency of Ooga-Chaka.

That guy brings his A-game.

Thrice.

Since making the plunge into Facebook a few years ago, I have had three of my Facebook friends die. Two were good friends, one primarily a Facebook friend. Heart attack, accident, heart attack.

They all died prematurely and their deaths were made more tragic in that all left young children behind.

One was a good friend in high school, and teammate on the football team. I saw him a few times in the five or so years after we had graduated,  then at the class reunions I attended. We chatted quite a bit on Facebook in the beginning and a couple of times on the phone. He made some informal  plans about bringing his bicycle to Michigan, with special interest in trails on the east of the of the state,  so that he could claim to have been to Hell and back.

One was a good friend in Grand Rapids, with whom I worked (at two companies) for a total of about 5 years. He was my go-to guy for sushi lunches in the area. He was a great sax player, and he knew a lot about a lot of things and I think he was chronically underutilized in his work.

The third was somebody I had some classes with in high school and I think I had seen once or twice in the years since. I was actually getting rather tired of some of his extreme views on Facebook and didn’t have that much interaction with him.

I’ve always known that friends of mine (from towns I lived in 40, 30, 15 years ago…) would die and never really thought about it how I might learn of their passing. Prior to my entry into the cyber world (15+ years ago), people that I knew have died. I usually heard about their passing from my family members or mutual co-workers and classmates.

When my friend (and Facebook friend), Julio died, a mutual friend from high school sent me a message of his passing. His Facebook wall was busy for several weeks afterwards as friends and his extended family paid their respects.

His daughter was providing updates on his wall, and still occassionally does, three years later.  It was a little freaky at first when I started to get these updates in my newsfeed from Julio.  They were in the 3rd person; it reminded me of the way that over-indulged athletes (and Bob Dole) speak about themselves. It seemed a little less freaky as time went on.

About a year later, another friend’s wife, sent me a friend request. I didn’t know her that well, but I had no reason to deny her friend request. I found out she had friended me specifically to inform me that he had died. She didn’t know of another way to reach me. (you may have noticed I have a rather ordinary name, there is usually more than one Scott Smith in the local phone books ).

More recently, a high school acquaintance who had friended me in Facebook went in to the hospital for routine surgery, I didn’t notice any updates about his status in my feed, so I went to his Facebook wall and saw some updates from his wife. She had tagged him in her updates so her status posts were showing on his wall. I saw several updates that afternoon. I was stunned to learned that he had died in the hospital.

There are occasional updates from his FB wall as his wife tags him in an update of her own. What’s bizarre (though understandable) is when he gets tagged by someone wishing him happy birthday, or to ask how his job is going.

The status updates in my feed from my dead friends feel somewhat normal now. Though the fact that they still “like” stuff from the afterlife is a little harder to stomach.

If a product, or organizational page has an update and they had once “Liked” the page then Facebook informs me of this.

To see that a dead friend “Likes” Amazon, or NPR , or the NRA, or the Miami Dolphins still seems a little bit peculiar, even though I understand that in Facebook’s quest to demonstrate a business model that “Likes” are very important.

Facebook doesn’t know when people are dead . Perhaps if they did the “like” would be in the past tense, such as: “John Doe ‘liked ‘ Disney World” (OK that would be creepy).

Frankly , I doubt that Amazon, NPR, the NRA or the Miami Dolphins really care if they are liked by living, or dead people as long as they’re liked.

I have noticed (with admittedly few data points) that people who liked Samsung seem to die at a faster rate than the general population.

I ponder whether it’s gauche to unfriend dead friends. And whether it’s polite to refer to your dead friends as ‘data points’ for that matter.

Subtle product endorsements from dead friends, I suppose, are part of this brave new world in which we live. Perhaps Facebook Likes will be included in our eulogies and epitaphs: “Devoted Husband, Loving Father, Who Liked The Wizard of Oz, Trail Biking and Papa John’s Pizza…..”

Times change and so must I. Though I’m not sure how I’ll take it the first time that a dead friend Pokes me.