On Facebook You're Never Really Gone

A woman I used to work with and was connected with on Facebook died back in January. Yesterday Shoutyface told all her chums to wish her a happy day. The Birthday Reminder arrived in my email box and there was an alert in the upper right corner of my screen.

It was jarring.


Some of her friends left wistful, thoughtful messages, knowing she’s gone.

Your friends and family love and miss you every day. Thank you for being my friend. Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday in heaven, Marianne. RIP

Thinking of you with a smile today, Marianne. RIP, dear one…

There was a raft of folks who were/are unaware that she checked out of the Life Hotel on January 10th of this past winter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIANNE. HAVE MANY MORE

Happy Birthday! Enjoy your day

Happy Birthday Marianne. Hope you have a great day.

It just gave me a case of the radical shudders. I wanted to yell Don't you know? She's dead! Have some respect! Makes sense? No but then, I'm sad. I miss her. I feel as though everyone should.

Could her loved ones take down her Facebook page or maybe announce that Marianne’s outta here?

She was only 69 years old. Young.

We were friendly, not close, in the years we worked together. She had a nasty rep for being, well, a condescending battle-ax. Marianne and I got on well but I found that I generally had my Diplomacy Hat on when we spoke.

When I became the Training Director at the large print company where we worked, Marianne was teaching a few classes or so. She’d been in Human Resources and regular instructor before I came on the scene. Sadly, like in a lot of companies, HR was the dumping ground for otherwise intelligent employees who just didn’t fit in anywhere else in the organization. There were def total gems but also a big bunch of misfits.

The student’s reviews of Marianne were pretty awful—she could be disdainful, mean and often spoke over many of the student’s heads. If she was good at straight forward, linear delivery of complicated concepts, she shot that right in the ass with her attitude. Students don’t learn when they’re dissed.

Doing my level best to not point fingers, not cast aspersions, I told her that it was time to shake up the department, have some new faces on the teaching squad—you've done a big job and now it's time to kick back and let others impart knowledge as well as learn and grow from the experience of being an instructor. Mind, this was all true but, more, I had to get her out of the ranks—her superior, nasty shtick was hurting our overall efforts.

Marianne was GREAT at organizing things—creating, crafting and keeping track of truly comprehensive records. That’s a talent, a skill that a lot of us don’t rock. Later, she found a niche, within the same company, where she could excel.

From a distance, not working together, she was fabulous—a caring, supportive person. I really enjoyed being friends with her on Facebook. I saw a much sweeter, warmer, giving side of her.

I understand that, in her younger days, she'd been married to a right bastard—a physically and emotionally violent, bullying, pool of rancid fry-o-later leavings. She never spoke of him to me. I can only imagine that his treatment must have effected her worldview. How could it not?

Mondo piles of feces—it’s the only thing that really trickles down hill.