I remember the days before the internet was such a part of our lives. When we began to embrace it, some people knew exactly how it worked, how information was connected and how it landed at our fingertips with only the push of a button. Like I knew how to search the library archives, some knew just exactly how information got from one place to another faster than I could open a book. But I surely didn't understand how it worked. I knew that it took me out of archives and into computer labs. It was like magic, a supernatural force moving information through some medium I couldn't visualize, the angels of info, gracing me with all too much at one time.
I did know that if I looked for something online, I would be presented with a generous selection of information, sources, unrevised, uncensored, unfiltered information. It was enough for me to know the utility of it. Or lack of, back in the days before Google was such a key in discerning what we see and what we don't. I also knew that if I typed up an email and hit send, it would fly out into the Never-Never land of somewhere I couldn't conceive, and somehow land in the inbox of a friend, or community forum. Professors and family members were not yet accepting notes this way. But that was ok. Professors and those family members I wished to see were always there when I searched them out in real life. I could see their faces, ask them my questions, tell them what I wanted to say. I didn't know how lucky I was back then.
The next few years were a blur, not due to the grueling pressures of research as a university student. Due to a different kind of student activity. I am still not sure how I graduated, but somehow, thesis behind me, I set out for the world. Despite the shenanigans, I had mastered most of Microsoft Office, understood cyber chat, was moving around files of dorm parties and trip photos, digitally mastered music, online jokes. The important things. I remember replacing a mixed tape with a burned CD for my mother. On a brand new CD player. She loved it, even though she really didn't know how I got all that music onto a CD from my very own computer.
As time went on, I got used to the idea of communicating this way for more than school or pleasure. I sent and received emails, chatted on MSN with not only friends, but even family. I eventually became the junkie I am today, checking my email several times a day. Since then, as we all know, there are countless social sites, methods and devices named after luscious fruits, all designed to keep us technically in the loop. I've started to adapt to this, even embrace it a little. I now know that a server doesn't bring you a drink, having wireless does't mean there was a power outage, and a browser is not a tireless shopper. But I can't say I've gotten rid of that idea of the vast unknown Cyber-land. As it becomes more a presence in my life, it still remains a mystery. I think I like to keep it this way.
On days like today, I prefer to be back in the time when I sent an email out into the unknown and wondered if the person on the other end received it. I liked the element of mystery to it. I was raised believing in a mysteriously amazing place we all go once we have finished this time on earth. To me, all places unseen are the same place. That unknown space out there where I have in countless bad times bargained it to reveal itself to me. It has a sweet loveliness to it, but it still calls me toward it, full of curiosity and sometimes desperation. Cyber-land morphed into heaven when I was in my twenties, then hell when I was in my thirties.
When my mother died I called her every day for weeks. I would realize after dialing the number that she wasn't going to answer, and so I'd hang up the phone and crumble into a heap on the kitchen floor, feeling like a crazy person. Maybe somewhere in my subconscious, I thought if I couldn't see her anymore, maybe I could phone her. Or maybe I thought that the use of an evolved technological tool such as a telephone would allow that extra stretch and make it possible to contact her one last time. It's amazing what you wish for when the pain is that intense. It wasn't long after that when I started envisioning that Cyber-land would bridge me to her.
I would email her long letters. I told her all about my life, how much I missed her, how life had changed and would never be the same. I told her about being robbed on Leacock St., losing a lot of so-called friends because of her tragedy, and graduating finally with no ambition and a lot of debt, getting my heart broken by my first love, coming to know promiscuity and feeling worthless. I could always tell her anything. She was good that way. Dead or alive, a mother's love is unconditional, I hoped.
I also asked her questions. I wanted to know where she was, what it looked like there, if she was ok, what I should do about this or that. I told her how alone I was, how painful it was to be so alone, like suddenly being a helpless orphan in a cold angry city. I would finish up each letter telling her that no matter how much she hurt me when she left, I didn't blame her, and I will always love her. Then I'd hit the send button and shoot it out to that unknown Cyber-heaven that I so desperately wanted to exist. Of course, I never got a response. But somehow I felt she got the letters. For a while, it was very comforting, and let's face it, you do what you have to do to keep on getting out of bed each day, even if it's crazy.
Over time the emails to my mother became less frequent, the wandering orphan found new paths and started to recognize peacefulness in her loss. But Cyber-heaven never went away. There always seemed to be a need for it.
More losses followed my mom's death. It's like a giant arm swept across my family landscape and removed a whole slew of the figurines in one motion, over the span of just a few years. For a while, I got lost running. I used distraction, ambition, substances to cope, unable to keep up with the grieving, and the emailing I should have done. Those who weren't caught in the giant sweep were left in ruin. We all fought, grew apart, and the living family might as well have been in Cyber-land too. There are more than a few bitter emails I wrote, which landed in the inboxes of loved ones still alive, that I wish I could delete from their memories. MSN accounts were blocked and unblocked, Facebook accounts deleted and re-added, poison prose exchanged regularly by computer or phone. Everyone seemed to be struggling alone in their own pain. Technology had just complicated our troubles and added another layer of confusion. We became a family seeing each other's kids grow up only by seeing the odd picture online.
Does every family have a Cyber-heaven, a Cyber wasteland, emails sitting unopened in the inbox, or worse yet, opened and put in the junk file, relationships whittled down to Cyber-communication only? Not every family goes through as much loss in such a short time. But many do. How do they recover? How do those left living mend relationships and forgive, let go of pain, learn to be themselves in new ways without the ones who raised them and showed them how to live? The answer is love. Love must be lived out. Love can't be kept inside and held up in hard times. Love can show itself most brilliantly when it is tested.
Can love be blasted out into Cyber-land to the living and restore a broken family? I say yes. It's one of the reasons I write. It involves embracing a new reality, a new way of doing things, the evolution of technology, communication, how we live, how we love each other. Slowly, we are finding ways to come back together. Healing takes a long time, but our new technology provides us with a way to take baby steps, new options to love each other then we had in the past.
I began to heal most when I started to see the internet as a tool that offers me a way to love myself and others, instead of just a necessary part of life these days. It's social, and it allows us to reach out more then ever before. It doesn't replace real face time, but it compliments it. Everyone can embrace it in a his own unique way. I tune into humor, music and inspiration in videos, and watch speakers who explain philosophy and faith. I send links of beautiful songs, post poems, send and receive prayers and little notes to say hello, or real time photos of my daughter. I started to add an x and o on the end of text messages to my younger brother, hoping to begin repairing all the damage that's been done. Baby steps. Do these things make a difference? The fruits of these labours, are restored relationships over time. Or at the very least, living with loving intention more of the time. After all, often you have to start out by extending the act of love intentionally before you can begin to feel it.
A few years have gone by. Things are getting easier. Some days I still find myself wanting to send one of those emails out into Cyber-heaven. Today I'm thinking of my Grampa, one of the beloved family members I've pictured residing there. It's September 1st, his birthday, and one the most important days of the year. So much of what I know, and who I want to be is about who he was. Today is more than just a birthday.
When Grampa was dying I wrote a poem for him, telling him what an amazing person he was, how important he was to me, how much he taught me and others. How I saw all the little things. I poured my heart out in the poem, tried to include everything that I knew would matter to him.
He was a man who wasn't about money or status, hobnobbing, fine dining or entertainment. He was about love. He loved everyone around him and put us all first, all of the time. And he never said a word about what he did for us, no matter how big or small his deeds were. My Grampa was no ordinary person. He was full of God. He was full of love.
An older family member decided that my poem was not a good idea and wouldn't allow it to be shared with Grampa before he died. She said it would hurt him because it was too emotional for a person who is old and dying. I didn't agree at all, but just as Grampa would have done, I respected her needs before my own and avoided causing any pain for her. I think it was too emotional for her. The poem was quietly tucked away before it was read. I kept my mouth shut. But, it made me angry and disappointed at the time. Who gave her the right to decide what an old man gets to experience as a reflection of the relationships he had, the love he expressed day in and out. What made her feel she had a place to intervene? To me, it was between me and my Grampa.
He didn't read it, but I like to think that Grampa already knew all the things I said in that poem. I think I will email him today and tell him we are all doing ok. And then, it's probably time to forgive her and add her to Facebook.
