"Saying goodbye in 140 letters"

I try to keep reading newspaper here in U.S., to improve my language skills and to follow the history happening right now in the world. In Los Angeles Times, that I usually buy after running in the morning, there is a column on the front page, names "Column One".
Reading column takes more time than reading article because column covers a broad range of topics, from politics to culture. But I really enjoy reading them and try to have a good sense of English, both linguistically and culturally.

Yesterday, the topic of "Column One" was SNS, twitter. "Saying goodbye in 140 letters" was the subtitle of that essay, you can read it online. Link below.
"NPR host Scott Simon tweets his mother's dying days"

Scott Simon, host of National Public Radio's “Weekend Edition Saturday,” tweeted about his mother's failing health from her hospital room. She died Monday night. He has more than 1million twitter followers, and he had kept sharing his emotion with/about his mother dying.

Some people will think that it is not appropriate to share something very sensitive, private and important. Beloved one's death should be one of them.  Death may not be able to be public. I think I agree with these kind of opinions at some points. 

However, if you look back to the past, like before the 20th century, death used to be very public. Suppose someone in the village died, all neighbors would know it and shared the grief. People kept close watch on obituary notice of local newspapers so that they could show their sympathy for the recently deceased and his family. A community at that time was small enough to share all emotions.

Now, in the 21st century, people are so isolated. If you live in big cities such as Tokyo and Beijing, you may not be informed even your neighbor's death. So here is the question; how do you cultivate your sense of death? How do you know that we all people are mortal? How do you realize that our parents will die sooner than us?

I checked Scott Simon twitter(@nprscottsimon) and read some tweets about he and his mother. I was, well, crying reading some of them. Those tweets reminded me my grandfather's death last year. That was really shocking experience to me and made me think a lot about my life, my family, society, and all world.

To be an adult, I now think, people need to face death.
More opportunities we have to visit the dying person, more possibilities we start to think about our lives seriously. I do not think that I will share my beloved one's death on SNS, but I cannot deny what Scott Simon tweeted solely because they are appropriate. There are always something you don't want to face, but you have to do in your life.

Quotes from Simon's tweets.

"Mother cries Help Me at 2;30. Been holding her like a baby since. She's asleep now. All I can do is hold on to her."

"I love holding my mother's hand. Haven't held it like this since I was 9. Why did I stop? I thought it unmanly? What crap."

 "I just realized: she once had to let me go into the big wide world. Now I have to let her go the same way."

"My mother in ICU sees Kate&Will holding baby and tears:"Every baby boy is a little king to his parents." So I tear too. "

"Heart rate dropping. Heart dropping."

"The heavens over Chicago have opened and Patricia Lyons Simon Newman has stepped onstage."

"She will make the face of heave shine so fine that all the world will be in love with night."