The Big Log Off

The company offers online memorials that remain accessible to recipients of your choice for twenty-five years posthumously. Posting a document, picture, and video file is free, while uploading more material starts at around $10 annually. Mylastemail.com also offers obituaries and a book of condolences. The only things missing are the floral arrangements and the organ music.

The company doesn’t appear to be wildly popular. Browsing the obituaries turned up a grand total of four, one of them for an individual named Ali Baba. Martin believes the issue just isn’t on people’s radar, and told me the volume of response to his site has also been low. “I’m sure teens couldn’t care less about who should know their MySpace account password in case they end up in a coma.” Most people just don’t expect to die.

I was convinced I would never find anyone who had prepared for the Big Log Off, when I happened upon Shirley Chinneck. The seventy-nine-year-old artist, who lives in the Rocky Mountain community of Canmore, Alberta, has a fairly straightforward plan that doesn’t involve any fancy computer programs. She’s stored all her “life data” — computer codes, safety deposit box information, and bank account numbers — on a memory stick for her sons. Other than a commercial website, which she’s given them permission to close down when she dies, if they wish, she has no virtual legacy. “I don’t have time for chat rooms,” she explained, “and I’ve made a point of deleting most of my emails. Who’s going to have time to go through all of this stuff? ”

I’m with Shirley. My novel’s going on a memory stick, and I vow to resave every single time I work on it. I’ll alert my family to my password so they can access everything. Those questionable photos? I’ll look at them one more time and press Delete. I might also record some kind of video message on my webcam and write a couple of emails to be opened by close family members upon my demise. I’m almost feeling good about dying, in fact. Almost.

I still have to figure out what to do with all those emails — a tricky call. They’ve essentially taken the place of letters, which I’d never trash. On the other hand, I never would have sent and received thousands of letters in the past ten years. The correspondence of Virginia Woolf might merit publication in six volumes, but it’s unlikely this oeuvre would make the cut (“I can’t do Tuesday. How about Wednesday?”). And yet, because so much of our lives flows into our emails, I worry that erasing the lot would deprive my relatives of the right to properly grieve me. I heard about a woman who, after her teenage son died, found solace in reading his emails to friends.

And suddenly it hit me. We can delete all we want, but unless others do the same our emails will linger long after we’re gone.

A magazine editor with whom I was friendly died recently of breast cancer. I hadn’t known she was sick and never got to tell her what a fine person I thought she was. As I sat in front of my computer feeling sad, I discovered several cheery emails she’d sent me. They gave me the feeling I was still somehow in touch with her. There was no good reason to keep these messages, but I did. I’ve decided they will be part of my virtual estate, for the cyber-forensic specialists of the future to study.