And some have been there for years. I don’t know, it feels emotionally impossible, morally wrong, even sacrilegious to evict the deceased from arguably the most important electronic document in our lives. Although calls and texts to my expired contacts will always go unanswered, I just want to stay close to those last ten digits of theirs like it’s my twenty year old, disheveled, hanging on by a yarn strand college sweatshirt. The one filled with memories that can never be re-lived. The one I was wearing when a kind passerby shoved a ten in my hand and instructed me to get something to eat.
Since I am the person who generally likes to help others, I put a notice on FB, Instagram, X and TikTok that anyone wishing to remove the contact information of the deceased from their phone can send them to my email address and know that proof of their existence will remain alive and treated with love and reverence.
After just two months, I have accumulated 24,412 dead people. Ironically, and happily, most of them are in my icloud.
Full disclosure: Being a lifelong hoarder with virtually zero space left in my house, this project has been a godsend. Isn’t technology great?
