Death And The Intersection Of Tech And Humanity

Sometimes life brings us a surprise

Last Sunday, my sister-in-law died. She and my wife’s brother had been married for 28 years. The day before she died was their anniversary. She died suddenly, riding in the car with her husband. In less time than it takes to post a tweet, she had a brain aneurysm and was gone.

Jeff and Rebecca live(d) in New York; Susan (my wife, Jeff’s sister) and I live in California. Try as we might to work it out, we couldn’t get back there this week. As you could imagine, Susan was heart-broken. Jeff is her baby brother.

It’s been a tough few days.

How user-friendly technology helps us

I’ve been a tech guy for almost 40 years; that’s when I first learned to program using punch cards. Over the years, I’ve watched technology insert itself into our daily lives and much of it, I appreciate. Some of it, I can live without, no problem.

But what I’ve come to appreciate this week is the extent to which technology has become user-friendly.

Voicemail

When we called Jeff Monday morning, it was as the result of a voicemail which had been recorded while my phone was turned off. Anyone who struggled through the years of voice messaging on tiny cassette tapes and a separate machine plugged into your phone remembers that Stone Age technology.

Even though I did not want ever to get a voicemail like that, I am incredibly grateful that it was recorded and stored for me to hear. All I had to do was turn my phone on, and the message was right there.

Facebook

The last few days have been a blur and a cauldron of emotions. My wife will be using her IPad and suddenly burst into tears. Sometimes this happens when she recalls a childhood memory. Most of the time, it’s because she’s read a post about Rebecca on Facebook.

Rebecca was a gregarious person. She had lots of friends, both online and offline. And it seems as if every single one of them has posted a picture of Rebecca along with a heartfelt memory. Rebecca loved her work, she loved The Yankees, and she loved getting together with her friends to share a glass of wine or a meal.

I’ve never seen anything like the outpouring of love I’ve seen this week. Ordinarily, I’m not the world’s biggest Facebook fan. But this week, I’m grateful to see the pictures and read the stories of a life well-lived. We didn’t need to do anything to make this happen except setting up our family connections years ago.

I know it’s not magic, but it is seamless and takes place with no overt user action on my wife’s part. There are a few glitches because of the way posts have been shared, and who has which permissions set, but those have been exceedingly rare.

This has been a way for Susan to start to come to grips with Rebecca’s death. She hasn’t had to track down friends who might have a few photos in a box somewhere in their attics; she’s been able to experience a part of Rebecca’s life. And while we yammer on about how fake and perfect life looks on social media, this week I am grateful that those are the pictures and the stories that have been shared.

They have been exactly what we needed to remember her.

Phones everywhere

This week, Susan has been talking with friends from the neighborhood where she and Jeff grew up. These folks are scattered all over the eastern seaboard but are still connected online. In times like these, people want to hear a familiar voice, and Susan has been able to talk with her former next-door neighbor, that lady’s daughter (who had a massive crush on Jeff as a kid) and half a dozen other people.

All those phone numbers were shared through emails and IM’s. Now those numbers are stored in the memories of all our phones and tablets. No running to get the paper address book kept in the closet, no need to erase or cross out entries in the paper book, just a few clicks, and those numbers are stored forever.

Yesterday afternoon, Susan spent some time messaging with friends who attended the wake. Everyone was very polite, no messaging while standing in line, but afterward, long phone conversations were held in the after-wake gatherings. Quiet, discreet, and precisely what Susan needed to fill the hole in her heart.

Livestream

The best part was today. The church where the funeral took place was set up to provide a Livestream of the entire service. Susan and I got to attend from our desktop here in our office, thousands of miles away from the actual event.

Livestreams do get wonky. The data passes through dozens of remote servers before it is displayed at the end user screen. The underlying tech that makes this a seamless experience is nothing short of phenomenal. For me, the best part is that it can be used by almost anyone with any degree of tech proficiency.

When I was first online, you needed a phone number written on a scrap of paper to dial into another computer; and then you could only read scientific papers or see porn gifs. Today made my heart sing because the technology worked easily.

Real life supported by technology

My wife spent the entire time in tears. That was fine because she was included in a once in a lifetime experience with her family and friends.

I spent just as much time in tears, but I still had to see to click the links to see the service.

I am so grateful for the time in which we live. I love being able to stand here at the intersection of technology and humanity. It is my firm belief that technology was created to serve human beings. I think tech’s chief task is to make life easy and to create possibilities where none existed before.

Yes, we have some work to do; especially in privacy and access, but this week, I am overwhelmed at the technological beauty of what we have created.

But mostly, I am grateful to be alive.