UBI SUNT? (Where Are They?)

Yesterday I deleted three people from my phone's contact list.  No, I had not had a falling out with any of them, although you might say they had fallen from my life and the lives of those who loved them.  To put the matter bluntly, they had died--one recently, one a couple of years ago, and one a few years before that.

It was only while searching for someone on my list yesterday that I realized I had no further use for these folks' phone numbers and email addresses.  Still, the deleting felt strange, unsettling.  

It felt wrong to erase these traces of people with whom I had been more or less close, so I'm going to share a few sentences about each in order to counteract the deletions. 

I saw a lot of Charlie back in my 30s.  He was married to a very close friend. We had meals together (he was a great cook) and talked about books (he was an antiquarian book seller and a poet).  Our contacts were sporadic after he and my friend divorced, yet the connection was not severed entirely.  He read, critiqued, and encouraged my writing, and occasionally sent me a book.  

I didn't know Rick well--well enough, though, to have him in my contact list.  In my experience, he was a fine man - kind and thoughtful, a musician and a reader and a dedicated volunteer.  One of his last kindnesses was to replace the wooden handle on my husband's wheelbarrow.  

I had a fairly close friendship with Brian.  We shared a love of writing and would read one another's stories. We also talked about our kids over lunch several times a year.  I will always regret not calling him in the weeks before he suddenly and unexpectedly died. 

I had known all three, and then they were gone, gone whether or not they remained in my contact list. 

The words that came into my head while making these deletions were these: Ubi sunt?  Let me explain. Many years ago, one of my college English professors shared a Latin quotation, which he said meant something like, "Where are they, those who went before us?" 

In any event, I could only remember the first two words, perhaps glued to my brain by the pleasure of the oo sound twice repeated.  I had to look up the rest. Here it is:  Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?

Ubi sunt, indeed. 

Does anyone really leave us in this digital age?  I confess I have not deleted, and do not intend to delete, the last two phone messages from my brother Jim, who died over a year ago.  Listening to his voice now and then makes me smile.

And there is this:  Two of the three people whose contacts I deleted still have active Facebook pages.  That's right.  Their Facebook "friends" can go back and look at what the departed had posted.  Is this a good thing?  I don't know. Maybe it's a comfort to those left behind. Maybe it's macabre. 

You decide.  

But let's return to the cosmic question:  Where are they now?  I tend toward the Taoist view that we come from what is whole, enter the world of forms, and upon our deaths, return to what is whole.  In his "Intimations Ode," the poet William Wordsworth wrote, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting . . . Not in entire forgetfulness,/And not in utter nakedness,/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God who is our home. .."**  (You might substitute The Tao or Love for the word God, if that is more comfortable.). 

Wordsworth's lines were echoed by something my daughter Anne said at about age three or three-and-a-half.  She first asked, "Where was I before I was born?" Then, before I could take a moment to respond, she announced, "I know. I was part of all of the love."

Wow. 

In the same poem, Wordsworth went on to write about the memory fading as we grow older.  Apparently, Anne had yet to forget.  And if we come from an undivided experience of love, is that what we return to?  I would like to think so. That's what those who have had near-death experiences describe.  (NDEs, however, are a subject for another day.) 

Listen, I'm not trying to convince you of anything.  I'm just giving you my intuitions with regard to ubi sunt.  If I am wrong, and all is dark after death, I will never know. 

I do know this.  When we delete someone from our contacts, we do not delete memory or affection.  Those who have mattered to us live on in our hearts while we are here, and maybe that is enough.

** The full title of the poem:  "ODE:  Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood"

Photo by Dario Brönnimann on Unsplash