When I have a question, I usually ask Google for the answer. It's comforting when I start typing and see that other people have wondered and wandered the hallowed Google pages in search of the same things, the same answers.
I've googled "What is Gangam Style?" (it's a song and a reference to a location) "How does the Note 4 measure blood-oxygen levels?" (wizardry and some really cool technology) "What does yasou mean?" (it's a Greek salutation).
But what do you do when you have a question you'd really rather ask a human but don't know how to?
I have a friend who blogs, and she mentions her late sister sometimes in her posts. I wanted to know how she died. I knew it couldn't have been good--I knew the sister was young.
So I Googled the sister's name. It was easy but uncomfortable.
The first search result: an obituary. 22 years old, beautiful, with a 1-year-old girl left behind. No mention of how.
The second result: "Woman ID'd in Crash." I felt residual pain waves that must have gone through the family's hearts when they heard the news.
The article wasn't helpful--it was early morning, 1:25am, the car collided with a truck, it took 3 hours to clean up, and the right lanes were blocked. No mention of anything concrete: why was she there? Was the truck at fault? Had someone been drinking? Was someone upset? Where was she going and what did the investigation yield? What color were the stars when she last saw them?
The next search results: the sister had participated in a study on asthma, which I also have. The photo in the news article shows the sister holding her baby. It could only have been taken a few months before her death.
I was frustrated that no one would say what happened. Why hadn't it been talked about? Then I realized: I was doing the same thing, tiptoeing around the issue, not wanting to talk about it either.
I don't have anything new or interesting to say about death. I just felt moved. It felt so strange to look at pictures of a woman who (presumably) didn't know she was going to die soon. It made me wonder if I will leave behind pictures and other people will Google my name and see...what? Pictures of my wedding? My Instagram account, where there are no pictures of me, because I am still trying to learn how I want to look when I grow up?
I am the same age now as my friend's sister was when she died. I need to remember that I might not come home one evening because someone might not look over their shoulder when they change lanes too quickly. I don't say this to be morbid, but to remind myself that there's so much more to the trite "live each day as though it was your last." There are little things, like leaving your almost-refinished MCM table unfinished, still lacking its last coat of polyutherane. Procrastination isn't the thief of time; it's only an accomplice to death.
Someday I'll ask my friend about her sister, when the time is right. And I will make my doctor's appointment for a new inhaler this Saturday. I've put it off for too long.
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