When I die I want people to know that I loved them and that they were important to me. It’s a simple goal but one that hit me this week as I scrolled through Facebook.

I was “reminded” by Facebook of the birthday of a fellow blogger friend that I hadn’t heard from in quite awhile. I had visited his blog last year and left a message on an old post. He never responded but then I hadn’t seen him write a post for quite awhile so I didn’t think much more about it at the time. Bloggers come and go.

When the birthday reminder came up I went to his Facebook page and saw birthday messages (including mine from last year) but no other activity. And then I looked a bit closer and saw the RIP message. My heart fell. My friend, Jack aka Jake had passed and I didn’t even know it.

Some of my long time readers here may remember Jack aka Jake Downing who blogged at Poems and Ponderings He was one of my biggest fans and we had a really great blogger support system going for a long time. His wife’s name was Beth and we had a lot of things in common. He was a wonderful poet and I loved reading what he wrote. I had a lot of respect for this veteran and Postal employee. So when I did a little search and found his obituary from last May it made me more than a little sad and I just can’t shake it.

So I guess it made me think a little bit about life and death and how social media has changed things surrounding those topics a bit. Even though I was subscribing to his blog and followed him in other ways I didn’t even know. I suspect that he got sick and the blog was the last thing on his mind. So it made me think about when I die…if I am still blogging…how I want my readers to find out.

I am always pretty open here on It’s Just Life although there are some topics that I don’t write about. Some things are just too personal and some things just don’t need to be shared, right? But one thing I know is that the people that I love know that I love them and my blog followers know that I am nothing if I am not sincere about my gratefulness to them for taking the time to read my posts. So I am going to take steps to make sure that if this blog is still going when my end time is near I will make sure that my readers are allowed to be a part of that part of my story as well. Not wanting to be morbid here but it seems like a way I can continue to share my love with my readers by allowing them to know what has happened, right?

So if you are reading today know that you are loved and that you are important to me. Whether we have met in real life yet or not is unimportant. Just knowing that you took the time to click and read makes my day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As always please feel free to leave me a comment and Comment for a Cause for Friends of DuPont Forest.