Ghosts in the Web
By Jodie Keenan, East Sierra Branch
On July eighth all my friends posted on Christopher’s Facebook page to wish him a happy birthday. Even with the algorithm there to remind you, it wasn’t always easy, because he’d constantly change his birthday online just to mess with us. He got me with it once, back when we were dating no less. After a few dozen “Happy Birthday!” posts he’d post something along the lines of: “Ha! Sheeple, don’t believe everything you see on Facebook. My birthday’s July eighth.”
Seeing all these people sending him love on his twenty-ninth is surreal, because Christopher hanged himself three months after his twenty-seventh birthday.
For months before he withdrew more and more from the real world and pictures from his lonely hikes through Acadia began to haunt his page. When even the lonely pictures of the mountains went away that should have raised the alarm, but the real red flag? He posted his actual birthday. This is our last conversation on Messenger.
“Still doing the birthday gag?”
“Nah, it’s real.”
“Oh snap! Then happy birthday!”
“Thanks Dawg.”
I sent him a party-hard cat DJ gif.
“I like kitties.”
Then whoosh! Gone forever.
I was haunted by the notion that I should have realized what was going on and tried harder to reach out. I understand that after suicide “survivor guilt” is common among those left behind but believe me, I’ve got experience, I have a timeshare on the edge. I saw what was going on and should have done more to stop it.
One thing that brings me a small iota of peace from these thoughts came from his brother’s eulogy. He said to this room full of goths, derby skaters and I swear, an old-school pirate, that we couldn’t blame ourselves for losing him, that his family was so thankful to all of his friends that he stayed with us for as long as he did.
Our last message exchange I’ve shared already, and the last post I left on his wall “celebrating four years of friendship!” lingers there right before all the memorial posts began to pour in. The first time I wrote him after his death?
Well, he planned everything out, arranged his own funeral. He wanted us to celebrate his life with a Ferris wheel ride at York’s Wild Kingdom, so we got the off-season park opened for an hour and I hugged myself against the frozen wind as the empty beaches climbed in and out of view beyond the tree-line as we rose and descended again and again.
When I got off the ride, I had to get out of there. I trudged across the empty amusement park and fell to my knees in the gravel just beyond the parking lot. His profile was still there online, and I wrote to him a private message as though he could hear me. Sometimes I still do.