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Thank you, everyone who sent such kind notes after Wednesday's post. My friend's death has made this week such a strange thing: A period of up, energized excitement -- about the new job at NPR, which has been a string of challenges and a lot of fun as I meet new people and figure out how things work -- punctuated by a series of disassociative moments.
Friends gathered, as people do when someone dies--to talk, to tell fond stories and funny stories and stories of mischief and misbehavior, and to listen and to weep. People brought food. Two astonishingly kind people helped take charge of logistics: The funeral is Monday, in the Midwestern state where my friend's family is waiting, devastated.
When I went over to his house Wednesday night, his partner pointed out the most bizarre thing. My friend's cellphone has AOL's mobile IM client on it. And the phone's on the charger at their house.
So every time any of us fire up the iChat, there he is -- present, unaccountably and inaccurately present.
His voice is still there, too, on the outgoing message of his answering machine.
Huh: Technology makes even death more complicated.
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