This Life

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

I learned of a young man's death today. Jeff was at home for the winter holiday, walking alone in the mountains of Vermont, when he slipped on ice and hit his head against a rock. Perfect one minute, and broken necked the next.

He clung to life for a couple of unconscious days, but the damage was too great even for a man in his 21-year-old prime to repair. Today he passed peacefully away.

He'd been kind to me a couple of times, although we'd never met. Neither had we ever spoken, nor even seen each other. Our communication had been entirely in type, using a network called Internet Relay Chat.

His brother Tim, who is also gay, would remotely enter this same chat group, and here also, Jeff corresponded, or "chatted" to Lenny, and they had become cyberlovers. This Spring they were to meet for the first time, and, God willing (which He clearly wasn't) become lovers in real life. (irl we call that.)

His channel buds are devastated of course. Something had to be done. So we made a suggestion, tentatively, that as he lived with us in cyber, then that is where we should mark his passing.

They didn't quite get it at first. Email cards they thought, and quickly made an address. Fine, but not what I meant. So a (virtual) memorial room was created, and people's thoughts and stories will be logged and passed to his real life relatives. Great, but still not what I had in mind.

No, what is needed to honour this young man's life is nothing less than a full-scale cyberfuneral. And he's gonna get one. A world first? Possibly. And maybe, in a cyber sort of way, Jeff will be there amongst us, reading and laughing silently. He would like that. In a further expression of love, his post-humous nick (name) has been chosen as Jeffstud, stud being the highest of gay accolades.

You want to know how far virtual community has developed? That's how far.