I have a theory about the people on this earth.
We all know the earth is round. Let's for the moment look beyond the geometry and think that the people who inhabit it form one large jigsaw puzzle. There are roughly 7 billion pieces. Every person alive is a piece of the puzzle. No matter how poor, how rich, how much land they own, they are one piece of the puzzle, equal to each of the others. As the population increases, the edges of the puzzle expand. As people die, their little space disappears and there's a shift, a cosmic shift if you like, as the puzzle is rearranged. At the current rates of growth and attrition, the puzzle is constantly adjusting itself.
One might say it lives. It breathes. It seethes.
Now, getting to the point of my subject title above:
When I first ventured onto the internet, I discovered forums, where like-minded people hung out and messaged each other. My first forum was moderated by a nice lady whose name I've forgotten, but I'll call L. I haven't forgotten L, though. As time progressed, I learned she had grown daughters, roughly where she lived, that she liked cats, baked a lot, simple small details of her life. I knew from the tenor of her messages that she had a wry sense of humor and took her (unpaid) job seriously. I may have exchanged two or three messages with her, and I believe she knew me only as a name, if that.
One day her daughter posted a message. L had died. A heart attack, I think it was. Though we were barely acquaintances, I felt a surprising sense of loss. This person, who had become a tiny part of my life, no longer existed, leaving an empty space in the puzzle.
Other forums, other years, other people I knew-but-didn't-know passed on. And I always felt first surprise, then that odd sense of loss. I don't grieve as I would a family member or close friend, but I miss that presence, the person who had become real because of thoughts shared, personalities made known, messages placed on a medium seen potentially by billions .
I occasionally surf blogs, and when I come across one that interests me I leave a comment. A person I'll call X, a writer, poet, replied to the comment I'd made. That was the sum of our involvement. Once in a while I'd visit X's blog for new posts. There were no updates for months. Perhaps X was ill. It 's more than a year now. The blog hasn't changed.
I do not know X's real name, where X lives, works, anything. I must presume X is dead. This sense of loss is somehow different. We were nothing but two ships passing ... no, not really. Two canoes who for the briefest moment swept the same wave with our paddles.
Was there a cosmic shift? Was the puzzle realigned due to X's disappearance? I'll never know.
I think that blogs exist forever, or as long as people view them. I'll check X's blog now and then. Leave a thought, if nothing else.
