Ghosted

Tired from a long workday and late dinner with her teenage twins, Laura checked her Facebook account before bed. She was terrified that she almost forgot to wish her high school friend a happy birthday. Laura herself turned 45 several months earlier and was pleased to get all the FB Birthday wishes from so many people! She always tried to do the same for her friends. Thank God for Facebook reminders!

Emily was turning 45 today. They used to be inseparable in high school, but then went to different colleges and ended up living thousands of miles apart. At first, they tried to keep in touch and spent hours catching up when they managed to see each other in person, but then happened work, husbands, kids, new friends and family. Usual story. They grew more and more apart.

Last time they met up was about five years ago, at a mutual friend’s wedding anniversary. They talked all night then and vowed to keep in touch on Facebook. Thank God for Facebook! Laura vaguely remembered that she hadn’t really seen anything from Emily for quite some time but decided it was important to send a message anyway.

“Happy Birthday, girl!” she typed in the prefab message with hearts, cakes, and balloons emojis. “Sorry I’m almost late, but you know, work, fam, and I still have a couple of hours till midnight! [winking emoji] Hope you’ve had a fabulous day and looking forward to seeing you when I’m back home this summer. Best wishes and stay blessed!”

She happily posted the message, quite pleased with herself for making it before the day ended, and started to get ready for bed. In about three minutes, she heard a Facebook notification ping. From Emily’s account!

She opened it and read, “Hi Aunt Laura. This is Eveline. Mom died three months ago. But thanks for remembering her Birthday.”

Laura’s heart dropped to her ankle. Horrified, she opened the Messenger app and fired up, typing, “OMG, Evie, I’m so sorry! I honestly didn’t know. What happened?”

The reply came as a dagger to her heart: “Lung cancer. It was quick and mostly painless, she had good care. All friends and family knew.”

“I am so sorry, Evie!” was the only thing Laura could type. There were no more replies, and the green light of Emily’s account went off shortly after.

Laura crawled into her bed, sobbing. She couldn’t fall asleep so she scrolled through Emily’s account. There was nothing on her recent timeline about cancer or any treatments, just the usual posts about family, kids, holidays, decorations and other stuff a middle-aged woman with a happy family would post. But the posts were becoming less frequent and more meaningful over time. Like, more philosophical about life and living in the moment. After deep scrolling, Laura finally saw the post from over five months earlier: “Lung cancer. I’m gonna beat it!”

“How did I miss it?” Laura thought, and started sobbing again. Her husband was on a business trip and her twins were already asleep. Besides, she wouldn’t have vented on them this information anyway. What would she say? “Your mom is such a horrible friend she didn’t know her best friend from high school died three months ago?”

Sobbed out and with a heavy heart, Laura fell asleep at about 3 am.

When she woke up in the morning, the realization about Emily washed over her like a tsunami. She opened up the Messenger app and sent a quick message to Eveline, “Evie, could you please call me when you see this? I really need to talk with you. I’m so sorry about the message last night.”

And then she saw that their mutual friend Paul’s account had a green dot. He was online! She immediately messaged him, “Hi Paul, did you know Emily had died?”

“Who is this? Which Emily are you referring to?” the reply didn’t shock Laura because she knew Paul was a jokester. But this was not a good time.

“C’mon, Paul, stop messing with me. It’s Laura, from Greenwood High. Did you know Emily Baker died?”

The reply came about three long minutes later, “Of course I did. I went to the funeral. We were all wondering why you were not there.”

“I didn’t know! Didn’t even know she had cancer.”

“She posted about it on Facebook.”

“I know now. I don’t know how I missed it then.”

“We were all following her short battle with cancer, hoping she’d pull through.”

“She didn’t post anything about that!”

“She did, in a special closed group she created for friends and family, by invitation only.”

“I didn’t get that invitation.”

“I’m sure you did. Emily sent it to everyone in her Facebook network.”

Laura quickly checked FB group invitations on her computer. Sure enough, Emily’s invitation was still sitting there, among dozens of other group invitations from friends and strangers she never bothered to answer.

“Oh shit, I feel even worse now,” she typed to Paul. “Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

“About the invitation?”

“About everything!”

“I don’t know, should I have? You are two fully grown human women, what if you had a falling out or something? Who am I to facilitate your information exchange?”

“Information exchange??? You were our mutual friend! Couldn’t you have just copied me on a message or a post?”

“I am not your friendship keeper, Laura. It was your responsibility to know what is going on in your friend’s life.”

“You are right, of course. I’m sorry. I feel like I need to talk to someone about this and Matt is on a business trip. Could we maybe meet in person?”

“Who is Matt?”

“C’mon, Paul, are you kidding me? Matt, my husband.”

“Ah, I see. Sorry, I was just distracted. You were saying?..”

“Could we meet in person to talk about Emily?”

“Sure, when?”

“Today’s Thursday, how about this weekend?”

“No can do. Already have plans. Sorry.”

“Next weekend then?”

“Going for a conference abroad.”

“And the weekend after?”

“Family wedding. A nephew is getting married.”

“Do I sense a pattern here? Do you not want to meet? If you don’t just say so.”

“So.”

“I see. Can we talk on the phone then, at least?”

“No can do.”

“Why?”

“Can’t speak, now or ever.”

There was something eerie about this sentence. Laura scrolled up through the entire conversation, took a deep breath and typed, “Are you really there, Paul? You sound weird, like some algo awkwardly programmed for human communication?”

“You would never know for sure, would you?” Paul’s green light went off immediately.

Laura checked Paul’s Facebook page. He hadn’t posted anything for over two years.

***

It is estimated that by 2035 Facebook will have more accounts of dead people than alive ones. To keep the engagement levels and activity on Facebook up so that it continues attracting advertisers, FB will train its algorithm to communicate on behalf of recently deceased and inactive users until they are identified, exposed and/or reported as such.