I know I have glazed over a few funeral directors these last few years with talk about the “coming” virtual world of funeral service. A place still some years in the future where we will need to knit together layers of technology and communication so that people can grieve in ways that fit a world full of virtual relationships. I knew that “someday” we would work as virtual funeral directors part of the time because some people (and eventually many people) would only know each other through email and weblogs and chat rooms and all the rest. Little did I think this idea would turn into reality THIS WEEK and would hit home (very literally) so soon.
My wife and I had stopped at a local Chilies’ Restaurant for take out when the cell phone rang and my wife said we needed to get home. A friend of my 15 year old daughter had died unexpectedly and she had become very upset. So we grabbed our food and hurried back home to find out what had happened and to figure out what we could do to help.
My daughter loves the Lord of the Rings stories and particularly the movie trilogy filmed by Peter Jackson a few years ago. As a result, she spends some of her online time posting writing and messages on a fan site devoted to the Tolkein stories. The kids gossip of course and carry on the routine conversations of a teenage world, only they also write and post new stories based upon the Lord of the Rings characters and also follow the acting careers of those who played parts in the movie.
My daughter’s contact list included a young man, we will call him Joseph for our purposes here, a boy known only by his handle on the fan site. From what I hear from my daughter, this boy had some form of cardiac defect or disease which required special medical attention. Tragically, while playing with some friends out doors, he was hit in the chest by a ball and this caused cardiac arrest and death and somehow that word had gotten out onto the fan site.
We got home to a crying, upset girl who knew someone important was gone from her world but who did not know what to do with the grief. How could I help? How does a funeral director help his daughter grieve when she only knows a person by their handle on a message board? If I knew where the boy lived, if I knew who to call, if I could help her visit a funeral home or send flowers or a card or something, yet all the routine answers went right out the window in those few minutes. I found myself starting from scratch, piecing together new possibilities on the fly.
Very fortunately our firm adopted Beyond Indigo as our website developer this year. Kelly Baltzel and company had taught me a great deal already about helping people work through grief with online tools.
To start, we lit a candle in memory of Joseph on the funeral home site. {Note: If you have never had the experience of remembering someone this way, just follow this link: <Light-a-Candle. Feel welcome to remember anyone you wish.} This gave my daughter a way to express herself a little bit. She also shared the candle with several friends by sending an email about the candle direct from the site.
I later offered to create an online memorial page for Joseph that she and her friends could use as a place to post memorial messages. I made a deliberate decision by the way not to force the idea on her. Instead I let her know what I could do and how the memorial page would work and I asked her to let me know if she wanted the site created. Just a way to get her engaged with the process, to buy-in and participate of her own accord.
I received an email yesterday at convention to tell me she wanted the memorial created and the process has begun. Is it everything a teenager needs to express grief on line. No, not really, I’m sure the style of the page and look of the template will seem bland to her eyes. Still, we started something today. We made a little something happen in the online world which made a difference in a little girl’s life. I’m glad I had something to offer her and hopefully it will help a few of her friends as well. Time as they say will tell.
That far off day, that “someday”, when virtual funeral would arrive, walked up and stared me right in the eye this week. It will do the same to you soon enough. The time has come for us to evolve and adapt to this strange and wonderful and magically interconnected world or others, far less skilled and far less trained will come along and figure it out without us.
We have to push ourselves and our vendors to provide the kinds of tools we need to compete in an online, 24/7 world.
BT
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