When I was 11, my dad died. We were tough kids though, so nobody cried.
I thought about the “pity parties” my brother described. Something we surely didn’t want in our lives.
But something inside me did want to share, to see the different ways people might show they care.
We had a new computer that would dial you in, get you on the line with someone in a place you’ve never been!
I opened up a chat room and studied the aliases present: random digits, underscores, and some clearly horny adolescents.
“My daddy died and I feel sad,” I typed and anxiously waited.
“Did he shoot himself?”
“What was he wearing?”
“Was he in his underwear?”
“Was he coming down the stairs in pears?”
I answered their questions, not realizing the joke. A voice of reason interjected, but it was quickly outstroked
by the fury of “LOL’s” and fancy, curly font
whose typists had determined kindness or empathy was not something they want
in the Yahoo! chat room or anywhere else.
That’s when I started to believe I really was all by myself.
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