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Finding Out They're Dead...

Ghost In The Machine

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
2,472
Location
Yorkshire
OK. I have to post this somewhere, and not sure where it fits as it's only mildly Fortean. But would appreciate your thoughts.

I have two FB accounts. One my real name (got about 12 friends) and one my work name (got a lot more, and no, I'm not a famous porn star or anything interesting). I like to keep the 'real' me separate from the constructed. And then I never really go on as my 'real' self because there are few people I talk to, really. I even went on with my married name so people who'd been at school with me would never find me.

Despite that, I have just 2 old schoolfriends on there. One, a lovely bloke from my old high school class. I had a miserable time at high school (think 'Carrie' without the pigs' blood). Very few kids were friends with me. He was one of the few who were. My life changed radically when I left school, moved away, and rarely gave the place a thought for decades.

Couple of years back, I noticed one of the worst school bullies - someone maybe a year older than me - in the graveyard back home.

Anyway, not been on FB as 'me' for ages, but something told me today to sign on with my actual name and just see how things are. I had a message from the old school friend, saying he'd been trying to get hold of me as a certain person who was in the same form as us, had died a couple of weeks back. We're in our 50s. So whilst we're not spring chickens, I had no real sense that people had started dying off yet. He said something along the lines of "That's another one gone". So I answered him to say "What do you mean 'another'?" And he reeled off the names of several contemporaries who are no more. Two from our form, and neither would be the ones I'd have betted would be first to go. There were more who have died, he said but he didn't name other names.

I feel a bit weirded out as she was one of 'my' bullies. Although she was the one who heard one day I had no mother and I heard her turn to her cohort and say words to the effect "We're leaving her alone now. I just heard she has no mum." And she was true to her word. She never bullied me again. I can remember her actually going further than that and being nice to me by the time we were about 16. Impossible to trust that, but I don't think she was a 'bad person'.

The only Fortean thing is, she had a name that no-one has anymore but was common in the 1960s. And the past few days, that name has been going through my head - particularly yesterday. But I thought I was thinking about someone else, a friend I haven't seen for several months and have been missing. And now am wondering, was I thinking about that name because this person with the same name just died..?

One memory I have of her is we went on a school trip in 1st year at high school and so were not in school uniform. This would be about 1974. Girl who just died was wearing a T shirt with her name printed across it. Our teacher said she shouldn't wear it as it told strangers her name. So whenever I thought of this person, I always thought of her name.

Also, unsettling because the sheer number of casualties, apparently - all people in their 50s, not their 70s or 80s, FFS.

So three things. That weirdness of wandering around as normal, doing your mundane day to day stuff, not realising someone you sat in the same room as for years is gone. Anyone else had that?

And the second thing - have you ever kept thinking about something associated with someone, or a name, and then found out a person you once knew, associated with that, has died?

Third thing: ever felt a sudden urge to go on some social media or an old email or whatever, you haven't touched for months and months, to find someone was trying to get hold of you?
 
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I have looked up a few of my former friends, classmates and acquaintances, and found that a few have died comparatively young.
Sad about this, because they were good people.
 
Faintly relevant.. Last week out of curiosity I looked up - with no intention to make contatct - one member of my old school class on Facebook and found a good six or seven others on his friends list. I won't go so far as to say it was unsettling but it was certainly odd.

I perceive myself to have aged only by addition of lines and white hairs etc. But I would not have recognised a single one of these faces if they were standing in front of me.

They are all mature, shall we say. Ie besuited "middle management divorcee with grown kids" looking men, and not one of their faces bears any resemblance to the soft focus reconstructions I carry around in my mind's eye.

Maybe I have someone else's memories.
 
I was recognised last week at work by a young man who'd been a pal of my older son when they were teenagers, 25 years ago. Wouldn't have known him from Adam!
 
....So three things. That weirdness of wandering around as normal, doing your mundane day to day stuff, not realising someone you sat in the same room as for years is gone. Anyone else had that?

And the second thing - have you ever kept thinking about something associated with someone, or a name, and then found out a person you once knew, associated with that, has died?

Third thing: ever felt a sudden urge to go on some social media or an old email or whatever, you haven't touched for months and months, to find someone was trying to get hold of you?

Once, 20 years ago, I felt a compelling need to get in touch with an old friend who'd moved back to France after a couple of years in the UK. I left a message on his answerphone tape. Normally I'd never consider phoning abroad due to cost issues. I sent a Christmas card too. It was returned with a letter from his sister telling me he'd died a couple of months previously from a ruptured aneurysm, around the time I'd left the message.

I also have a feeling of somehow being a bit of a 'black widow' in that three ex-lovers all died relatively young and/or violently and kind of feeling that somehow I'd jinxed them (which isn't true). They'd died long after we'd parted but coming across the news months or years afterwards was still a shock. I'd been young and single at the time and I guess even just by statistics and perhaps their life choices it's likely that least some of my ex-amours would meet a premature end. It just jars - the sexual act is such an alive thing and expression of life - and now they are dead, cold and gone.
 
One memory I have of her is we went on a school trip in 1st year at high school and so were not in school uniform. This would be about 1974. Girl who just died was wearing a T shirt with her name printed across it. Our teacher said she shouldn't wear it as it told strangers her name. So whenever I thought of this person, I always thought of her name.

This bit jumped out at me. I'm aware of one person from my class at primary school who has died, plus another two from the other form in our year group. The girl in my form who died didn't really bully me at school but we were in the same hobby group where she did bully me. I did tell an adult but as the girl was a pretty blonde they didn't believe me, but that is irrelevant.
The reason this jumped out at me is because she also had a t-shirt with her first and middle name on which she used to wear the hobby group a lot, which she was eventually told not to wear. When I heard she'd died the first thing I thought of was that t-shirt.
 
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