My good friend and colleague Pete Blackshaw‘s father passed away yesterday after a tough battle with cancer. Pete created a memorial blog in remembrance of William Blackshaw, and I just left the following comment:
I never met your dad in person, but I’ve met him through the great qualities he’s passed along to you. And I’m terribly thankful for that. May he rest in peace. And my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family as you tackle this next chapter.
I’m here to help my friend in any way I can. But after some time has passed, I also will be interested to speak with him about his very personal experience of mourning in the age of social media. I wrote about this topic last year in my MediaPost column, and it lured much passionate feedback. Our everlasting digital identities are among the most profound phenomena emerging in our Internet age. And we’re just beginning to experience immortal digital identities after the actual person has passed, such as in this case.