Facebook Spirit

Yesterday it was rainy and cold and a holiday and we had nothing to do but lie around so I took the dive: I joined Facebook. I knew I had the day to waste. So I logged on and there was a list of people waiting to be my friends (how flattering!) headed up by my dear, deceased friend Natalie--my very first friend to join the facebook world, months if not years before anyone else our age. What is the etiquette there? I said I would be friends with her. Then I logged in to set up a picture. She had already set up a picture for my facebook page--it was a picture of the two of us, pre-cropped and ready to use. So I used it. Again, weird. What does that mean that my facebook photo is of a dear friend who is no longer here.

So I started my facebook journey, trolling for friends and making those strange decisions you need to make like: do I really want to be friends with this person? Or am I just getting into this weird numerical competition, trying to make myself feel popular in some concrete way, and boost my numbers, as long as this person I don't know so well will consent to be my friend, because if they don't I will feel really bad about myself.

Then the birthday page came up, with all my friends with February birthdays. Now I love Aquarians, and my February birthday list is really, really long, and it is all people I truly do love. But there, at the top, was a notice. "Natalie Kraft's birthday is tomorrow!" I don't know that I believe in ghosts, or spirits, but I have had sooo many instances where she is literally calling me from beyond the grave. Not in a mean and scary way. Always kind of playful and prodding--just like she was in real life. Just pushing me along where she thought I needed to go.

Happy Birthday Natalie! I am thinking of you. And I feel you. You live on in my heart, and in the pages of Facebook. That is SO you!