Those who know me personally or read my blog know I write, joke and think a lot about death. I don't do so out of sadness but rather focus optimistically on how to live life to its fullest, taking risks and making the most of our time here. I blog online, keep a journal offline and love taking many pictures in order to record, understand better and - ultimately - remember/document how I've lived.

This blog posting is the sad story of how our world is changing. Just a few days ago I blogged about the interesting and positive ways the Internet has affected my life. Now I'm forced to face the reality of how the Internet mediates death. How do we deal with the fact that a large part of our lives are lived online? Beyond that, what happens to our online selves when we die? In the past I've pondered what would happen to my online identity when I die. At that link you can even see an ad hoc will that instructs my heirs on how to deal with all my social networking profiles, this blog and all the friends and relationships I've built thanks to the Internet.

All the above issues came crashing down on me as I began preparing for what I call "Jacob's Intergalactic Tour of Awesomeness." Next week I'm embarking on a four week-long trip to the states for work (and some pleasure). Part of the trip will be spent in California, a state I used to travel to approximately four times a year between ages 18 and 22. This trip will mark my return to Los Angeles for the first time in almost four years.

As can be expected, I've been emailing friends and colleagues to schedule meetings. One such email went out to an old acquaintance by the name of Anne Dinnell, from Santa Cruz, CA. (This may be one of the first and only times I've mentioned a friend by name on my blog). My email was immediately returned with an error message that said her address was no longer valid.

I quickly embarked on a typical exploration. I started with MySpace, which has replaced Google as my go-to people-search engine. I found Anne's profile but MySpace claims that she hasn't logged in for over a year. I then tried LinkedIn, which more and more people are using and tend to update frequently (from my own experience). No luck there. I then tried Friendster. No luck either. (Update: I completely forgot that she was indeed on Friendster but I was looking under a wrong email address. I have since remembered Anne's Friendster profile).

Finally, I resorted to Google and felt my heart drop to the floor when the first search result stated "Fourteen months after being diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma, Anne Dinnell, 26, died Thursday evening..." There was no way it could be a mistake. That link took me to a blog about melanoma and there it was, Anne's story, along with links to previous postings about her condition, her battle against it, press stories from her local Santa Cruz paper, etc. Everything was right there and I had no idea what to do or how to feel (except horrible).


Anne Stephanie Dinnell
1978-2005
My story with Anne is a pretty typical Internet-based relationship story. At least we didn't initially meet on the Internet... our story begins before that was popular but our friendship was maintained thanks to the Internet. I was 18 years old when we first met on a flight from Las Vegas to New York in January of 1998. Her and her friend were flying to NY for a fun vacation from California and my best friend and I were just returning to NY after a fun trip to Las Vegas (yes, I've been visiting Vegas since before I was 21). They sat behind us and, even though we were nerdy Jewish kids from Brooklyn, my friend and I got the courage to start talking with the two cute girls behind us. By the end of the flight we had exchanged numbers and had plans to hang out during their time in NY.

To this day I vividly remember the train station I dropped the girls off at when their trip was coming to an end and they had to get to the airport. We stayed in touch a bit after that and I even sent Anne a Valentine's Day card in February of 1999. That's where our corporeal relationship ends.

It wasn't until September 2002 that she tracked me down. Using Google, she found this blog and wrote me a long and very friendly email that gave me the full update on her life. We spent the next month or two exchanging dozens of emails and a bunch of pictures. She even left a few comments on this blog, which are now forever immortalized in my comment archives file. In a similar way, her MySpace profile remains online and will likely stay there for a very long time.

Almost a year later we reconnected by email and instant messaging as I was in the planning stages of moving to Israel. Again, we picked things up like we were old friends, updating and advising each other. Once I was in Israel we continued chatting, this time even trying to catch up on the phone occasionally. Things continued so well that we planned for her to fly to NY during my first visit back home, in May 2004. After pricing out itineraries we ultimately gave up on the idea as too hard and expensive to pull off.

Now we get to one of the absolute hardest parts of this blog entry to write and ponder. Who knows what would have happened if that trip became a reality? Instead, I only have this, which she wrote after we decided the trip wasn't possible: "My only hope is that you will keep me informed on your next trip and I can really plan it out."

After that we basically lost touch and, basing my estimations on press stories I found, two months after my trip to the US she was diagnosed with advanced skin cancer. After battling the cancer for over a year she passed away at the age of 26 in September of 2005.

I was very happy to see that her memory lives on in the form of an annual performing arts festival in her name. There is even a call for submissions for the second annual event, which happens to overlap with my time in California and maybe I'll be able to attend.

I don't want to end this entry with too much philosophizing. The story speaks for itself. I just spent hours crying and rereading all the emails we shared (I archive everything). Saying life is short, we must live life to its fullest and appreciate every moment as if it were our last is not enough. We actually have to live that way. Not enough to talk. I can only hope this story helps me do so and that, by sharing it, others will be helped as well.