May is always a difficult month. A light spring mood collides with the anniversary of the death of a good friend. We are closing this year for fourteen years without N. Time has washed away the pain, but as you know, “what worries me most is your absence, how will I get used to it.” Therefore, when a notification came to my mobile some time ago that N. “joined viber”, I looked at him for a while. Since 2009, his name has been on my screen. I didn’t remove him from my contacts, I didn’t want to. Now his number was transferred to another subscriber, life went on, and he also wrote to me on my mobile.

How many of our cell phone contacts have disappeared? How many friends are on Facebook? Today people leave, but their digital traces remain, the stars of the former life, the traced trajectory. Previously, in order to remember our loved ones, we had to turn to photo albums and boxes of souvenirs. Today they are everywhere. We have their text messages, our messenger chats, email, everything that made their life trivial and special at the same time. Returning to them years later, by accident or on purpose, we discover new elements, details that have eluded us, small moments that are now precious. “In the digital age, in the era of the emergence of the ideology of “datism”, when the universe wants a stream of data, another way has been added to “communicate” with citizens,” says Ioanna Georgopoulou, a psychologist and family psychologist. Therapist. “Deceased, “owl” and “owl”, according to Kostis Papagiorgis, remains on social networks even after death, either through their digital path or through the profiles of their loved ones. However, new information about the deceased, his digital trail can come and cause emotional distress.”

That’s what happened in Georgia Lekka. “Three years after my friend died, I found a message from her on my cell phone,” he tells K. “I completely forgot about it, and when I saw her name on the screen of a mobile phone, I was in tears. I thought about everything we wrote to each other and everything that was never said.”

Cloud”

The same with Kostas Mantzaris. He lost his mother two and a half years ago. But it often appears tightly in front of him – on an iPhone. “Every day, the iPhone groups together the photos it has collected over the years in the cloud. Sometimes mom comes along. Before dementia takes her to the depths. Before her physical condition also vanishes. I get cramps every time. Each time I say that I will look for the appropriate setting and turn it off. I do not do this. Maybe because I don’t want to miss this extra chance to remember her.” For the same reason, he probably did not delete the “Mom” contact on his mobile phone. He never calls her. “The number is still not listed anywhere, and the message when I call says that the number does not exist or is not available. The irony is that he accurately describes the situation between us. If there’s anything that makes me sad about this digital memory box that I unknowingly created, it’s that by changing devices all those years before smartphones became a part of our lives, I lost a few of the text messages it used to be. She sent it to me when I was studying. – in the seventh decade of life – to use these new technologies.

Even Irini Julakou, Merimna’s resource manager and mental health consultant, didn’t delete her father from her cell phone, and one day she saw him calling her. “Three years after his death, during a difficult period for me, my mobile phone rings and I read “Dad” on the screen. It was from my mother who kept his phone and decided to call me from it. “It was very important to me. I felt it as a metaphysical caress.”

Phone call from an unknown person

“Every day, iPhone groups photos in the cloud. Sometimes mom comes along. Each time I say that I will find the appropriate setting and turn it off. I don’t.”

Irene was attending a bereavement workshop the day her father passed away. “It was the last day of the seminar, and of course I didn’t go. But it was as if I was watching it to prepare. It really changed my understanding of death and loss. Everything that follows is different. As a gift”. Among other things, a few days later he received a message in the messenger from an unknown girl. “He started talking to me about my father in a very touching way. She told me that he was like a second father to her, a very important person in her upbringing.” Irini suddenly realized that during the almost six months of the year her parents spent in the village in Mani, they had created a relationship that she did not suspect. “On the one hand, he revealed to me something about my father that I didn’t know, and on the other hand, I was jealous because he raised me Maniatic, without much effort, while in this girl he showed his tender face. .” Is it possible to get to know a person better after his death? You can.

Since then, her father “appeared” several times – as if to remind her of his absence. “While looking for information about the village on the Internet, one day I came across a list of his phone numbers. Write your name, address, phone number. It has not been extinguished.” Another time, while aimlessly scrolling through Facebook, he sees a picture. As he looks at her carefully, he notices her father. A friend uploaded a photo from his childhood and it was there. “I didn’t expect this because he didn’t have a Facebook profile himself.”

Facebook is ruthless

Facebook was relentless, relentless in the pain of loss. “Three years ago I worked in a public organization as an educator,” Katerina (she does not want to give her last name) tells K. “There I met a 16-year-old girl with cancer, who, unfortunately, did not survive and “left” after a year. I was lucky and unlucky to get to know her and get close to her as I worked many shifts at the hospital. It was one of the most painful situations in my life. Since then, every year Facebook reminds me of our “friendship”. Every year my soul cries…

Tasula Eptakoilis, a fellow journalist at K, opened her Kindle a few months after her husband’s death. “I saw that he was reading Ancient Greek Tales by the American writer James Baldwin. And – where would I present it? – I was presented with a page from the chapter on Prometheus. How fire was given to people. Prometheus, the vulture that ate his liver and fire… Kostas died of liver cancer. There was a metaphysical connotation to it all.”

One number, one life

“Will you die when your phone is taken from you?” asks Chrysostomos Fundoulis, a pensioner who was forced to turn off his father’s phone on Ikaria. “I was very upset, I put everything off. I finally cut it off. It goes to 22111, which my father chose because back then it was the easiest number to dial with your finger, but it was very easy to block, and whoever called called our phone very often. It was my mother’s joy.”

Oh those silent phones. That’s why journalist Pelio Papadia was happy when she found out that a message from her father on voicemail had been saved. “My aunt left a message that my father left in 2009. He died in 2010. No matter how hard I try to listen to him, I’m glad that his voice is on tape!

“I still have their phones in Favorites”

“I lost both parents one after the other to severe cancer. First, my father fell ill and “left”, and when I went to raise my head after the mourning, my mother also fell ill. The first diagnosis was on the 10th year, the last loss was on the 19th year. After their death, I learned something that I did not know about any of them.

My parents divorced, but they always had a very good relationship and spent a lot of time together. On the night of my father’s death, I received a message from an unknown number. The sender wrote very beautiful words of love to my father, it was very touching. She wrote that he was a very important person in her life, that she had heard a lot about me and would be glad to meet me to personally tell me how much she loves him. We dated, and without even talking about it openly, I realized that they had an affair with my father. I didn’t have to ask for details. Before me was a grieving man. It was enough for me that she loved him.

In the following days, after emptying the house, I found various things confirming the relationship that I suspected he had, I found poems he wrote, a book he wrote, and said that he would read it to us someday, but this the moment never came. I remember my father jokingly told me that he liked Marx’s phrase that all people have three lives: private, public and secret. “I don’t know what you will find after my death,” he said with a laugh. Disgraceful, I thought when I found them.

My mother was a woman with brains and a passion for life. A man that all generations have hung out with. Free spirit, full of energy. Suddenly, he gets a stroke and cancer at the same time. When he “gone”, I found old letters from old lovers and admirers. It was very difficult for me to close her social media accounts. He had a very strong presence. A couple of years her birthday fell on me. Today I look back at what was written about her, at her memories, videos and photos. A lot of material was uploaded after her death, she was very loved. Memories are both comfort and pain. I feel that deleting the profiles will remove her.
I also look back on our conversations and draw strength from her “I love you.” I still can’t even delete their phones from my mobile. He’s still there, in the Chosen One. Now I find my mother everywhere, but mostly in the sea and in music (always in the fresh air), her two loves. Whatever music I listen to when I dance, it seems to speak to me!”