Facebook is an absurd, life-corroding disruption that
encourages self-obsession and pettiness.
That being said, a miniscule measure of goodness resides in all evil
(Yes, I know, this is unnecessarily harsh.
Just follow me for a moment.).
This week, Facebook triumphed by effectively trumpeting
the wishes of a boy who no longer lived to vocalize his own passions and
preferences.
“A church in western Germany has bowed to public
pressure and allowed the parents of a soccer-mad nine-year old boy who died
from a brain tumor to erect a gravestone with a ball logo after a Facebook
campaign spawned more than 100,000 angry messages.
“The dispute between the boy's parents and their
Catholic church made national headlines. Newspapers printed poignant pictures
of the dying boy in hospital last Christmas with Juergen Klopp, coach of his
favorite club Borussia Dortmund.
“Shortly before his death, Jens Pascal had told his
mother he wanted a gravestone that reflected his passion - the club which won
Germany's Bundesliga just days before he died in May.
“But the Church of Maria Heimsuchung in Dortmund
refused to erect a stone engraved with the club's logo and a soccer ball on
top, arguing that it did not conform to rules which ban non-Christian
inscriptions and images.”
Generally, I dismiss technologies as homogenizing
distractions that extract every gratifyingly unique and hushed human quality
from unmindful users.
Generally, my hasty and brutal rejection of internet
services and handheld devices is appropriate.
However, this tale is a welcome exception to my
doom-and-gloom rule. Indeed, this is an
instance of one boy’s unspeakably touching hope to differentiate himself and
his memory. Among hundreds of standard
grey headstones, Jens Pascal sought to spotlight his youthful, pure, and
animated enjoyment of soccer.
Though his exact wish was not granted, the resulting
compromise will hopefully appeal to the precious boy’s lingering spiritual
presence:
“The church issued a statement late on Monday saying
it had agreed to a compromise. The gravestone could be erected, but with the
ball on the ground rather than on its top and that it would also bear a
Christian symbol, probably a dove.”
As an outsider, I contend that the greatest misery of
a young death is its many thieveries. In
particular, it robs an individual of the chance to thrust his own meticulously
selected identity into this overfull world.
Though, before his death, the young Jens Pascal could not define himself
with the painstaking precision of a man of eighty years, Facebook offered him
the coveted opportunities to select the qualities and contents of his memory,
and to make his cemetery presence a little more remarkable.
