Last month my friend died, so I started putting together our digital archives. I wanted to back up our emails and iMessage chats, because we chatted about everything starting in 2010 or so. Emails are easy. I have 699 emails from him, and Google cheerfully documented them all, including a bunch of GMail chats. iMessages are harder, so I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out how to best back them up.
A few minutes ago, I found my first iMessage with Mike. But it wasn’t from 2010. It was from 2015. My heart sank.
I vaguely remember this time. I liked to say that “we fight like brothers” meaning we loved each other deeply, we respected each other deeply, but we also had squabbles.
According to this, I appear to have deleted my chat history and not talked to him for a while. My other chats don’t cut off in 2015.
This is a pretty big gut punch. I was counting on those old conversations. I feel like I’m saying goodbye all over again.
