Every time a friend dies, I face a dilemma

Recently I’ve lost two friends named John. And the contacts on my phone already contain a dozen other ex-Johns. Should I delete them, as life has? Your views would be appreciated.

In recent months I’ve lost two John friends. And the contacts list on my phone already contains a dozen other ex-Johns. Should I delete them, as life has? Your views would be appreciated. Picture: istock

It’s a sign of the times – of my own personal times – that I would like everyone to wear nametags. Even friends and family. Particularly family. And perhaps pets, too. Unlike newfangled smartphones, we octogenarians lose our facial recognition skills. Who owns this visage? Who are you? Do I know you? If so, why?

And that’s not the only problem I have with recognition. The contacts lists on my phone contains hundreds of names I don’t remember. Why are they there? Take “Peter”. I’ve known a lot of Peters in my life but the phone proffers even more. No hint of their significance, though. And that’s before the even worse problem of all those “contacts” I can’t contact. Because they’re dead. And soon they’ll be the silent majority.

Every day I feel my pulse and check the obits to see if I’m still alive. As of now, yes. Or more accurately, more or less. But I find myself beginning more and more radio programs or tweets with “Vale”. On into the vale of death.

In recent months I’ve lost two John friends – John Pilger, the journalist, and John Embling, co-founder of Melbourne’s Families in Distress Foundation. And the contacts list on my phone already contains a dozen other ex-Johns. Which leads to a multi-horned dilemma. Should I delete them, as life has? To do so seems rude, really – a final metaphorical nail in their coffins.

Until Wikipedia put it out of business I subscribed to Who’s Who in Australia. Every year a thick, thumping and expensive volume would arrive. I found it useful – and more reliable than Wikipedia with its faux facts. I hardly recognise myself in it now, though. It’s so out of date and abbreviated, you’d get more info on a Fantale wrapper. And now Who’s Who is no more. The voluminous volumes sit as silent and unopened as that other victim of Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I only mention Who’s Who for one reason: the way it dealt with death. It took its title seriously. It was present tense. Who’s Who – not Who Was Who. Once you were dead your entry was buried, cremated, forgotten. No matter how august you were in life, no matter how many honours, gongs or medals you’d accrued, your death meant your deletion. You were as ex as John Cleese’s parrot.

Like our overcrowded cemeteries, there’s no room for more contacts in my iPhone. So do I follow the rigorous example of Who’s Who and delete them? Or let them linger on in a sort of half-life? Or try to ring them still, in the hope there’s wifi in the afterlife? Could I, at least, leave a message? (Perhaps there’s a telephonic limbo, a 5G purgatory... but how would I know, given our lousy NBN connection?)

A confession. There are many alive-and-kicking contacts, including a plethora of politicians, that I’d be delighted to delete. Particularly if it proved fatal. And many more I’d like to block as you can with Elon’s Twitter (now known as X ... another form of eX?).

Of course, my computer allows me to restore – to backtrack on deletions. And there’s a lot of contacts I’d love to restore, resurrect.

Your views would be appreciated. Preferred protocols? Post-mortem manners? But be prompt in making contact. My time – and perhaps yours – is running out.