Listen, I know literally NONE of the kind, lovely people reading these words right now is concerned with my untimely death. (Disclaimer: Am not dead, nor near death.) (Disclaimer to the latter half of the previous disclaimer: As far as I know.) Anyway. You KNOW about Life, and how it Happens, and also you are (likely) a blogger as well, and know many of the infinite reasons that keep a person from blogging. Also, I have taken MUCH longer blog breaks than A WEEK, get a grip, Me. But ALL WEEK I have had this little voice in my head saying, “Update your blog. We are in pandemic times. People will fret.” And I have countered that by saying, repeatedly, as to a child who has selective hearing about getting their socks on omfg, GET A GRIP, and yet here we are, metaphorically sockless. Well, now I’m not even sure how we got here, to bare feet. Seems I have lost the thread.
Let’s start again.
I think the pandemic has made me a bit panicky about… well, many things. But this week, at least, I am (gently, musingly) panicky about what if someone I care for but don’t know (YOU) should suffer something awful – too awful to make blogging possible? Is there some sort of blogging phone tree (or, PLEASE, email tree) that we need to subscribe to? I suppose the blog is as good a central messaging system as any, as long as someone remembers/is directed to post there.
In the case of my untimely somethingsomething, if and when it should occur, I feel confident that a) a few bloggers know enough about Me In Real Life that they could find out what happened and report back and b) when I was freaking out that my husband and/or I would die during our tenth anniversary trip to Europe, I did put a little note in A Place That People Would Find, and it included my blog password and a request to post a note about my death. I did not include anything about updating social media, but I have Real Life Friends on instagram who could potentially let people know, and I never post on Twitter anyway, so I don’t think they count in the same way. The point is, presumably, someone at some point would let you know. This is all assuming anyone would care if I suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, but I am assuming YES, you would care, because you are kind and lovely and also because thinking otherwise is the path to madness.
But what about YOU? Do you have such a plan in place? Most importantly, please don’t die. But also, I would CARE and I would WANT to know.
Oooh… now I am really ramped up on this topic. If you are unprepared to get even MORE MORBID, then I suggest you skip this post. I will post something more cheerful tomorrow, I promise.
Here is the more morbid part:
I would want to know details. Listen, that sounds ghoulish, I know. But I’m not saying, like, ALL the details. Just… details.
My husband and I watched an episode of Shark Tank the other night, and it featured this really great entrepreneur who was an ex-Marine and who just gave off this vibe of Niceness and Sincerity. He and his partner got a deal for their product. But then at the end of the show, there was a note on the screen that said the show was dedicated to that same man, and then listed the dates of his birth and death. It was shocking! I was shocked!
I immediately went online to find out what happened, and from what I could tell, he’d succumbed to cancer. One or two articles implied that he had perhaps been sick for awhile. But I wanted MORE details. What kind of cancer? How long had he been sick? Was he sick while on the show? Was his death expected? I guess this is morbid curiosity, right? Wherein you feel that if you know the details of someone’s undoing, you can somehow avoid them yourself? I don’t know.
And I FULLY understand that he and his family have a right to privacy. Fully understand. That makes total sense.
However, he is a total stranger to me. YOU are not. And I would want to know – not all the details, of course, because you also deserve privacy. But maybe like, the cause of death, and was it sudden or expected? How is your family doing? Is there something I can DO, like buy a meal for the family or donate to a favorite charity?
Maybe I need to write an In Case of Death blog post, with some fill-in-the-blanks so my husband or whomever can fill it in. Like, how is Carla doing. And is my husband taking time off work. And if there will be a funeral/memorial service. And if my parents/in-laws will be coming to help take care of Carla. And maybe my state of mind, toward the end. “She keeled over doing what she loved, eating nachos” – something like that.
Perhaps what I am suggesting is the reinvention of the obituary. But in my head, it would be somehow different, for the blog readers.
It would be ideal, I think, if there were some person who knew me enough to know the details, but who wouldn’t dissolve into tears writing about them in a blog post. (You see that I am assuming tears, as well. Not that I am assuming everyone has to be stricken with unbearable grief, or anything. But I would appreciate a few tears.) I wouldn’t know how to go about setting up an arrangement like that, though. Presumably the dispassionate blog poster would have to interact with one of the teary-eyed family members, to get the appropriate information. Maybe the pre-written post is truly the best plan. I can put it in a prominent In Case of Death folder on my computer desktop. There. Now you know the plan.
Belatedly, in that I have already mentally and wordily COMMITTED to this post, I see that Swistle wrote about this very topic years ago (much more concisely, and less morbidly). That makes me feel better (although accidentally derivative), that other people have similar concerns.
Okay. If I were to take the big sleep tomorrow (again: no PLANS to do so), what would you want to know to feel satisfied and like you had Closure?
Suzanne, I think a lot this often. Well, not often often, but you know. What if I died? Who would update the blog? Presumably my husband would post on IG and FB, presumably someone would say something. But what about the blog???
Not that I’m planning on dying anytime soon but! What if! Also if you died I would be heartbroken. Honest to god heartbroken. So, um, don’t? Please?
I have had blog friends drop their blogs but often I know them on SM anyway. When my friend Melanie died, there were many posts from friends – and her husband – so even distant and virtual friends knew.
Aieeeeeeeeee.
I do sometimes worry about blog breaks – if I haven’t heard from a person in a while I do worry. There is a blogger we both follow who hasn’t posted in a week and given her health issues in her house, I AM WORRIED.
NOW I AM STRESSING ABOUT THIS PERSON.
Heartbroken is the right word, Nicole. I would be heartbroken if you died. I get SO VERY ATTACHED to all the bloggers I follow!!!
I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS AND NOW I’M PANICKING. How would my blog readers know? I don’t know any of you irl and there is no email tree and WHAT AM I TO DO?
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Please tell me what your plan is because this is going to weigh heavily on my mind. (Now I’m worried that perhaps none of my readers would care/notice if my blog just stopped being updated and I’m too big for my britches. All I can say is that if any of my regular blog friends stopped posting, I would be worried. Including you. This post has inspired much anxiety.)
ACK! I am very sorry to have inspired such anxiety!!! That’s not good! Let’s see. I would notice, and miss you, I promise. (PLEASE DO NOT DIE.) You and I follow each other on instagram — do you have IRL people that follow you there? If so, that could be a good bridge between IRL and blogging. If not… maybe write a note on your computer that has the blog details? Or the email of one of your followers, to alert in the event???
Oh my. I admit I have also thought of this, especially since my friend Joe died suddenly in Dec. I think updating my blog would fall to Mini, and I think she would eventually get around to it. I have a few good friends who know I blog and read my posts, so they could maybe remind her. I use the same password on all of my ‘things’, or a close version, so I think my people would figure it out.
I do NOT have an emergency file and this post is alerting me that I need to get on that.
I would so miss you, so please don’t plan on going anywhere, and I would be sad and concerned about Carla. So I would hope for info on what HAPPENED/updates pertaining to all of that.
My favorite part, am I allowed to have a favorite part of a sad topic such as this?- well, anyway . . . THINKING OTHERWISE IS THE PATH TO MADNESS made me chuckle.
I am real life friends with enough bloggers that it would get around and Elizabeth is best friend soulmates with Dashoff’s teen and they text each other every few minutes so Diane would be alerted within moments of my untimely demise and she’d be able to handle alerting the internet.
Like you said, I think I would like to know what happened. I like to know everything and I would want to know everything here too. I have known a few bloggers who have died and usually they have had a spouse or friend update for them. But they’ve all died from expected illnesses and have had time to make those plans. I don’t know if I want to do anything like that for the just in case because I think it would get around enough if something did happen.
I like to think that enough of us know each other that it would eventually get around. But I am glad you have A Person. (DO NOT GO ANYWHERE, JEN.)Holy hell this is the most morbid conversation I’ve ever had on this blog. I guess I should have anticipated that, huh?
This is crazy. JUST YESTERDAY I was thinking about this very thing.
I don’t have my password written down, but my husband knows the software developer who helped me set up my WordPress site and HE has access. Would my husband think contact him to update my blog? What would he say? I would want him to keep writing…but that would likely just be weird…
This was what I was thinking about the whole time I was showering. Not how good the water felt, not how much fun it was going to be to watch the Olympics, not what a bad idea it had been to eat 1/2 a bag of Sour Cream and Onion chips…nope, I was thinking about “How would my new blog friends know if I died?” And “I hope they would learn that I died and didn’t JUST ABANDON THEM.”
I’m also: not on social media and only started blogging last summer…so I feel like no one would notice/know and that made me panicky.
Good to know I am not alone.
I also wonder this sometimes when I click old blog links and they haven’t been updated in years. Especially when the person has an abrupt stop – like 4 posts a week and the last post seems very routine and then BAM, 5 years later and nothing…
I’m also with you on wanting to know all the details. I thought this morbid fascination was only me, but I can’t tell you how many Google search strings I’ve entered over the years to learn all the backstory about someone’s untimely death (or some other terrible life circumstance). The fact there are so many true crime documentaries on Netflix makes me think this is not that uncommon.
Glad you’re alive. Please stay that way.
YES people would notice! Please enlist your husband’s help for this thing that is NOT going to happen!
Oh, wow, I was very glad to read in that linked post that I HAD put a note in my In Case of Death folder. I hope I have updated the password—but also, Paul is my IT guy and can probably find all my passwords.
I DEFINITELY want to know if an online friend dies, and I worry periodically about how in many cases we wouldn’t know. Quite some time ago, a blogger did in fact die, and her husband just, deleted her blog. And I. I mean. That is hard to get over. Like why. That horrifies me.
I have also put in my In Case of Death folder that unless there is some STRONG reason NOT to, my cause of death should be revealed. I am so consistently perplexed by the way obituaries often DON’T SAY. Especially when it’s someone YOUNGISH. If someone in their 40s or 50s dies “after a brief illness,” NOW in the time of Covid, I WANT TO KNOW THE ILLNESS. (But also even before/after the time of Covid.)
I know I have covered this very topic once – a million years ago and can’t seem to locate it. A lot of my post titles aren’t very specific is the lesson I’ve just learned here.
This is a valid concern and I would be devastated if something untimely should happen and you were just…”gone.”
No one in my “real life” technically knows that I blog or have social media – I do correspond (yes, we actually send letters occasionally, in addition to comments/emails) with at least one; so theoretically, she could reach out to The Husband to see if I’m still alive – but that seems wrong. I’m going to have to think about a solution for this.
And yes, I’d want to know some details. Including service information – I’d want to send a card and flowers.
Suzanne, you’re not alone. I have definitely *thought* about this before but I have not put any “action plan” in place. My husband has access to all my passwords but I do not know if he would think about updating my blog if anything happened to me. I should tell him. I am not sure if he’d be able to navigate his way around WP, but I am sure he could ask for help. I’d have to impress on him how very imperative it is to inform my blog readers.
I “hate” when bloggers – even the one I don’t have a two-way relationship with, drop off the face of the earth. I do appreciate a farewell note when people decide to stop blogging, although I might still continue to wonder about them after the fact.
It’s a tricky situation, is what I am saying, but yes, I’d definitely like to know if something happened to my blog friends (and I am sure we’d not be at the top of the “inform so-and-so” list… but there should be some sort of protocol. I agree.
I’m Not dead either! Have been suffering from the EXACT same worry about my own blog… and wondered if all was well with you on a totally “don’t fret” way.
Also… The Refashionista DID die, and her blog isn’t updated, and it’s full on crushed my heart and gave me an existential crisis earlier this year. So… is of real concern. Also I am the family obituary writer (damn good, if I do say so) but also a crier so I’m no help here…
Morbid but fascinating topic! I need to add something on this to my emergency file (which is not as organized as that sounds). There’s no way my mother would be able to do it, but my brother would be able to. Or I could ask a friend. And yes, definitely answer the What happened? question. I want to know, and I assume the same of my regular readers (you few, you happy few).
Don’t die! Your posts are very cheering, I’d miss them and I’d be so sad for your family. Carla! I could cry right now and it hasn’t even happened.
I also do the morbid googling! I can’t get a whiff of any death (close to me or not) without it. Not proud of this but I just can’t stand the lack of resolution. I have to know! Just WHY. That’s all. I would presume the family would not be ok, so don’t need those details so much.
Again, just never die.
I hadn’t thought of this! But now I can’t stop thinking of this!
I have thought about this, but I haven’t taken any concrete steps. Beth is actually the one who posts my blog (I write it in Word and put the photos in a folder and she takes it from there) so there wouldn’t be any technical obstacle, but I guess I need to outright say, if I die, post something about it on my blog please.
I haven’t thought about this for years, but I did think about this when I was single. I had a pact with another blogging friend and we agreed we would post on each other’s blogs if something happened. But I am married now so I would expect my husband to post something but I need to specify this in some sort of “upon death” file! I used to be a very regular blogger but now it is ‘1-3 times/week’. So I could go missing and people might not think anything? Whereas if another blogger I follow (Grateful Kae) doesn’t post for days I worry something has happened!
This is morbid, but when I was single I did used to worry I could be that single woman who was found dead many days after passing because I lived alone and none of the people in my life that would notice my passing were connected. It would be odd if I stopped coming to work, but would my coworkers know how to contact my family? I no longer have to worry about that now that I am married. But it was something I kind of worried about in my single days!
Suzanne, there was a time in 2020 where you stopped blogging for a few weeks and I was seriously convinced something terrible had happened, either to you or to Carla or your husband and I was riddled with anxiety! Basically, I would notice and I would be very, very upset. I don’t get too worried when someone stops blogging for a week but I’m a worrywart by nature, so when someone who blogs regularly suddenly stops, I’m always convinced the worst has happened.
I haven’t ever thought about what would happen to my blog if something happened to me! I should put a plan in place. I have considered making a “in case of my death” document so that my family can get into things like my bank account/payment accounts/etc because my mom and I learned the hard way ho difficult it can be to get into these accounts after someone has died. And I really don’t want my family to have to worry about getting legal documents and such for things like that! So I need to do this AND put something in place for my blog
For someone who thinks about death a lot, this still feels like such a morbid topic. But it’s something to think about!