If I should die before I wake,
I pray the lord my soul and facebook to take.
Okay, so this is a post which borders on the morbid but when it comes to death and grief I often feel out of step with modern trends.
One of my least favourite is the leaving of flowers at the scene of accidents and crimes. I wouldn't want the spot I was shoved off this mortal coil decked with flowers and worse still cuddly toys. Left to rot and fade into a tatty memoriam, I shudder when you drive by such things which I find are more a dangerous distraction rather than meaningful remembrance.
I come from quite an old fashioned and small village. The graveyards were manicured, family names in headstone huddles with perhaps the odd bunch of fresh flowers (but never a wilted or dead bunch in sight thanks to the groundsman and villagers).
It was a shock to see the town and city graveyards when I moved nearer the city. A mix match of headstones and names. Some graves covered in everything from soggy birthday cards to empty miniture bottles of spirits. I'm afraid I'm on the side of the meany vicars who are trotted out in the papers every now and then for wanting the church graveyards kept with a degree of decorum.
But now the world of grief has moved online. I saw a report not so long ago about a young couple who lost their child. It was sad and tragic but within a few hours of the child's death the mother was on her Bebo page writing messages in text speak. It just made me feel uncomfortable. I appreciate we all face grief differently but I do feel we are pushed more and more to go public these days.
And no messages leave me more uncomfortable than those left for the teenage victims of crime on their websites. One read 'You iz a soulja in heaven. I be with u soon bruvva'. In amongst the 'would you do me?' and 'poke' applications, the text speak memorial for a dead friend is slotted in. Is it good? Some form of communal grief? I fear not as I fear it locks many a teenager into the grief and doesn't let them transcend it. And at it's worse I have no doubt for some it is a trendy inclusion, a chance to join in with a little bit of drama.
But to be lighter...
It is depressing to think that on passing through the pearly gates the first thing I'd be compelled to do is turn a bloody computer on to reply to facebook poke messages and MySpace requests from shit bands. And then to find on my passing people could only be bothered to use text speak.
If I should die before I wake
I pray my friends full sentences make.
Because if they leave words without vowels
I'll come back and haunt their bowels.
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