THE NEW COMMUNICATION

My mother-in-law died last week, mid afternoon.  She was born in Scotland, had immigrated to NZ in the 1950s lived in Blenheim for 10 years, lived for many years in Wellington and then moved to Auckland with my family in 2000.  Her deceased husband's family live in Scotland and her family had emigrated to Australia.  We had the immediate family phone numbers but the following day we turned to her address book for contact details for the extended families, the myriad of her friends and distant relatives.  She was 82 and her address book was largely incomplete, with only snail-mail addresses because that is how someone of her age communicated with people.  Toll calls were rarely made as the memories of their cost in past years still resonated and of course email was a complete mystery.

We telephoned at least one person in each of the extended families in Australia and Scotland and a number of m-i-l's close friends and asked them to disseminate the news. My disabled son has been the keeper of the family network as he has had a computer since age 5.  The day after m-i-l died, at our request he went on Facebook and announced the news, as did everyone else in the immediate family with a web prescence, including me. 

Within 2 days we had a long Skype conference with the extended family in Scotland, including aunties, cousins and grandchildren. Her sister-in-law, herself in her 80s, kept remarking in her scottish brogue, "This is much better than a telephone call - and it's free!"  One second cousin who we had not seen since about 1971 when she was about 4 years old, got in contact via Facebook and drove the length of the North Island to attend the funeral.  One young woman who regarded m-i-l as her second mother arrived from Colorado for the funeral!  We were blown away.  She had read the news on my Facebook page. 

But there was a downside.  We  rang my brother-i-l in Sydney within minutes of m-i-l's death to tell him the bad news.  He was obviously very upset.  His daughter from his first marriage was very close to her Nana.  The b-i-l needed some time to compose himself before he could think about tracking his daughter down and telling her.  She lived in Queensland, was always changing flats and never had money for her mobile so it was often difficult to contact her. 

Meanwhile a "partner" of the immediate family (i.e not married to), jumped the gun and got on Facebook late on the evening of m-i-l's death and announced the news on her Facebook page.  The missing daughter went on Facebook that evening and rang her father in hysterics about the news and demanded to know why she had to find out this way.  Of course her dad was forgiven but the whole family was very annoyed at the "partner" as it was not seen as her place to announce the news before the family.

The only person we could not track down was m-i-l's cousin in England, who had been her closest friend as a young woman.  We tried every trick we could.  We found her address on the net which allowed us to interpret m-i-l's illegible, frail handwriting.  But, no phone number, international toll enquiries could not find a telephone number despite the address and the cousin has no web prescence or links in view of her age and because she has no children/grandchildren who might have one.  We will have to write to her.

Overall, however, the whole process was a stunning demonstration of the new, linked communities we now live in.