Another Good-Bye

28 and light snow this morning, with a dusting on the ground from yesterday evening's flurries.

We were saddened to hear of the death of our neighbor Arthur Winter. I met Arthur when we were building our house, back in 1975, when he was a senior in high school. He was a wild one back then, always ready for some new adventure. 

I remember him coming out to help us on our house, and how he backed his truck all the way up our driveway, which back then was a lot rougher than it is today. And I remember how he would come on his tractor to pull us out of wherever we got stuck at--usually in our friend Don's even more primitive road. 

Those were good, happy days, when we were all young and excited about living where we lived and trying out so many new things, often things that helped us all survive our questionable choices. Like building houses on unfinished roads so far back in the hills that there were no utilities or anything else, except trees and solitude. Arthur was a local, and lived on the farm that his family had owned for generations, a steep hill farm that only the daring would drive a tractor on. Don was from Ohio, a suburbs boy, and we were from Northern Virginia, townies with few skills for the life we'd rashly chosen. 

But we all survived those wild days. Today my ex-husband lives in Virginia again, Don is in Arizona, I'm still in the house we built back then, and Arthur was still living on the family farm when he passed away. About 10 years ago a stroke took away his ability to speak, which had to be hard on a man who loved to tell stories, but he regained most other brain functions and continued to farm. Covid, however, found its way to him and to his compromised heart, and took him away. He will be greatly missed.

We seem to be saying a lot of good-byes these days. Part of it is our age; a natural part of getting old is seeing friends pass away. It's not easy, even though we know that it's to be expected, And of course Covid is just adding to the toll. But onward we go, keeping the memories of all those we've lost in our hearts, minds, and stories. And in that way, keeping them alive at least for our lifetime.

Which make me wonder about this new thing they're calling metaverse. According to what I can understand, in metaverse we can create an avatar, and then create "rooms" where people we invite in can interact with each other's avatar. I am not sure if that's exactly accurate, but here is what I wonder: will these avatars be able to continue to interact and "talk" with other avatars after we're long gone? Would that, in some sense, be eternal life? Would we be able to train or avatar to think and act as we do? An odd thought, I know, but what a strange virtual world that would be. Not one I would feel at all comfortable with, but I wonder if that's where this is new technology is going.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.