‘And We Fade Into Darkness, Fade Into Darkness’

Shelly Alekka passed away a few days ago. It was cancer that took her. It was in her stomach. It’s not like we were best friends. It’s not even like we were close. I knew her though. Not like you know someone on Facebook, or someone you met once in college. I went to school with her during the formative years of our lives. My school was private and small. Her mom was my computer teacher. I used to see her everyday. She had a striking smile that I only recently noticed. I had always taken her as a serious girl; she was the competitive one back then. In those years when we wore uniforms and before makeup, I didn’t see that beauty. I regret that.

For a couple hours I just sat there, numb, browsing photo after photo of her life from the past few years. She had just graduated from Berkeley in May. Her diploma said summa cum laude in bioengineering. She had interned at Genentech. She just went to Vegas. Everything seemed good. Had she even been sick? But then again, this was Facebook. Only the fun stuff—the impressive stuff—made it on here.  It saddened me that the only thing left for those who hadn’t known her would be this sole profile. Maybe it was good thing; she seemed happy and perfect.

Her thin, curly brown hair was always tied up in a high ponytail. Her ears were always adorned with tiny, shimmering gold hoops—like delicate rings meant for a small child’s pinky finger. Her eyes, her most prominent feature, were fish shaped and sporting pupils like rich drops of coffee on a canvas of crème. Unconventionally beautiful, mousey, her petite presence was as calming as it was strong. People respected her. I don’t know if it was because she was so damn smart, or because she had a way with words. When she spoke, everyone listened.  And when she worked, everyone watched. She was my valedictorian once. She was starting her first job. She was in love with a boy.

The thing is, I can’t remember much more. I want to. There are bits and pieces that are coming to me, but I question if they’re the right memories. When I looked up her profile on Facebook, I’m not surprised it’s still there. Pictures and sentimental words with heart shaped emoticons decorate the wall. There are a lot fewer than I expected, but then I remember she was a private person. I can’t help but think about her mother; her poor, stern mother. That woman taught me how to code at age eleven.  How she did it, no one knows.

I found out about her death because my best friend messaged me on Facebook. We had a brief exchange, mostly claiming how shocked we were and how we couldn’t believe this had happened. After a few more generic things were said, there was silence. Virtual silence. And though I knew how we both felt, I craved to hear that silence on the other end of the phone. I just wanted to be heard, or hear; to touch and to feel.

Some of the more eloquent recent posts on her wall are calls to action. Requests to seize the day and be thankful for our futures. I have a problem with this. I just want to grieve. Why won’t these people let me? It’s easy to post something on Facebook. It’s easy to type out a string of characters that means something, but also means nothing. Shelly’s never going to see all her “friends” who say she was “the sweetest most wonderful girl” they’d ever met. I want to talk to Mrs. Alekka, and I want her to know that I am hurting just like her. I am hurting not because her daughter meant so much to me, but because daughters mean a lot their mothers and pain is universal. The thought of losing someone with promise and youth is sad. Disease snatching people prematurely is even worse. Horrible things happen to so many, but not to everyone. I find myself asking the question: Why her?

In this hour of darkness, one girl keeps coming to mind who instead of asking why her, decided that it wouldn’t be her. I heard Malala Yousafzai’s interview on the Daily Show a couple days ago. She’s a sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because of her advocacy for woman’s education. While explaining her love for school, she says, “We are human beings, and it is a part of our human nature that we don’t learn the importance of anything until it is snatched from our hands.” She is right. All of Shelly’s well wishers, her friends and family, they feel the crushing pressure—the finality of death. We all know life is short, and we only live once. But maybe if we live like Malala, fearless and willing to stare death down, loss won’t paralyze us.

Malala describes her native Swat Valley in Pakistan as paradise: a land where lush green hills meet crystal clear waters—a land the Taliban took over and have terrorized since 2007. Every freedom was taken away from Malala and other women like her. She fought, she spoke out, and she did what we read about in books and fables. In response, the Taliban shot Malala in the head, but even a bullet could not quiet her. She’s roaring to the world to help her with her cause. She’s genuine, and when she speaks, the sincerity and optimism in her voice rings clear. She wants nothing more than to send children to school. She stands firm in her beliefs.

I am humbled, and sad, yet my thoughts are hopeful. I wish the poison could have killed the cancer inside of Shelly. I wish the Taliban didn’t exist. I wish more than anything that the stories of the lives around us were told in narrative and not on Facebook. In a day and age where social media rules our lives, I hope there is still space for real conversation. There’s power in spoken word and human touch, because the experience of a loss feels incomplete and uncomfortable with only the words and the pictures from my computer screen.