The Need to Be Remembered
I’m going to die.
No, I’m not sick.
I don’t know if it’s today or tomorrow, ten years from now, or ten years after that.
Starting Out
When I originally started this blog, it was to be like any other developer blog, really. Demonstrate my knowledge, share information, and act as a memory bank for whatever bits of my experience I found useful.
The standard bit.
My first real post (Facebook Pixel Is Slowing Down Your Website (And How To Fix It, Securely)) was five years ago on Sunday, July 19th, 2020. And while I was developing websites before this time, I was so happy about the damned thing, I couldn’t wait to show my wife my own little corner of the web. I couldn’t wait to share it.
The Pressure to Write
But like most developers, that didn’t last long. There was a lot of internal pressure to come up with “something” to write about. My next article would be on file naming conventions, and that was in May 2020. That was inspired by a class I was teaching for FEM STEM Bahamas.
I wrote this boring piece to help my students and act as a reference for future students, myself, or just anyone who might need it. Basically, it was something to write that was useful.
Life Happens
My father, Joseph I—that’s “The First” not “Senior” (inside joke)—died on October 3, 2000, when I was 16 years old. It was just my mum, my brother, and me. That’s not to say we didn’t have extended family, but our little clan had shrunk.
Life happened and then I met the love of my life, Garnell, in December 2010. We bought our home in May 2012. I married her on June 8, 2012. It wasn’t happily ever after—we had our ups and downs—but it was worthwhile and meaningful. And at the end of it all, I would do it all over again.
My last post was on May 28, 2021—almost a year later. Like a lot of developers, I was out of things to write for some time—not for lack of content, but for reasons.
Some things happened, and then my brother, Miguel, died on June 20, 2022—about three years ago. But he left his beautiful daughter, for me and Mum. But our clan got smaller still.
Then my wife died on February 22, 2023, seven months after that, and my clan got even smaller. I was devastated, to say the least. My personal and business life suffered. Whether through grief or neglect, I made some bad decisions.
I haven’t been telling you about the deaths of my loved ones for pity, but because I want them to be remembered in some way. The web allows that to happen.
The Forgotten Corner
One of those bad decisions was completely forgetting my little corner of the web that I was so proud of. This site was down for almost a year. It occurred to me: What would happen to this site after I died? What would happen to the domain name that is my name?
Apparently, I’m not the only one with these thoughts. I came across Chuck Grimmett’s article (How can we keep domains working long after our death?) after a search on the very same thing. Who says AI has all the answers? To be fair, Chuck didn’t either, but that’s because there’s nothing out there (at least, that I could find) that deals with this.
But it got me thinking: How could I preserve this site? Preserve my name. This site is now on GitHub Pages, despite the horrible security. I think GitHub will be around for a long time, hence the choice. I’ll talk more about this decision in another article, but for now, that’s where we are.
This is all for a point, though.
The Need to Be Remembered
My wife and I had no children. We were not blessed in that way, unfortunately. With all that’s transpired in my life, death has naturally become a silent preoccupation of sorts. I’m not so much afraid to die—I’ve had my time of that—but I want to be remembered in some small way. The web allows this to happen.
This is why you’re reading this article right now. I want a record of having been here. For my wife, who had no children, I want her to be remembered. I want the world to know she was here for a short moment. That I was here. The web allows that to happen.
Starting Over
So, this blog will be repurposed in some ways to accommodate a more natural form of communication. I still want to share the things I know in terms of web development, but yeah… I guess it’ll be more random interlocutions like this sprinkled throughout.
All that to say, I’m writing again, all for small, selfish, human reasons. I encourage you to do the same. And I hope that you’ll visit from time to time.