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Nicholas A. Riggs
Following Bud: Blogging at the End-of-Life

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2014, Vol. 20(3) 376 384
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Article
Theres a lull in the conversation going on around me. I
check my email, Facebook, and then scroll through posts to
pick up reading where I left off:
This otherwise cry-free Bud-face was born to revel and laugh,
I say. To tell stories. To live stories. To sing and play them. To
drink of the magic elixir of life and to share the wonder of its
intoxicating mysteries. To enjoy each and every day. To learn
each and every day, beginning with knowing where you are
and to connect and compare that local knowledge all the way
out into and among all of those ineffable stars. It is from this
simple, holistic, epistemic core that I learned not only how best
to listen to others, but to use what I heard and observed and
lived with them to be helpful, which is to say, simply, to help
others learn how best to tell their own stories.
I read in the opposite direction of writing, in reverse,
which means that todays entry relates to yesterdays. I real-
ize that parts of the story, now slipped into the past, reflect
an uncertain future. I see history enfold as I unravel it in
parts, struggling against the winds of progress that blow
toward the present (Peterson, 2010, p. 63). Scrolling down
the page, I look at older entries with anticipation, tracing
steps and putting my feet in backward footprints. Clever
titles mark phases of treatment; periods denote moments of
self-reflection; joy and anxiety; pain and pleasure.
Buds tone changes and other people echo back, their
responses laced with gratitude and amazement. There are
the regulars, people who comment frequently, others who
just started following and dont shy away from saying so,
and people who have been following all along but have said
very little. Some are active, some are passive, but everyone
contributes to the story, taking the journey together, with
Bud. Each time reading I find myself there with them
somewhere in cyberspace or Cancerlandwhere things
move at their own pace:
In Cancerland there are surreal clocks that serve different
purposes and they run on their own good time. Think Salvadore
Dali clocks melting in the desert. There is the Big Clock that
counts the remaining days of my life and whose final readout is
just out of sight. There are smaller clocksdigital, analog,
sundialthat measure out days and nights in eating rituals and
medications, walks and naps, or that serve as monitors for
routine body functions that are no longer necessarily routine.
I check the digital clock in the corner of the screen. A
ticker, of sorts, keeping track of progress. When and how I
read posts is up to me, but where I am when I read Buds
blog is not a matter of time or placeCancerland, as far as
Im concerned, is somewhere between a state of mind and a
slight of hand, where movement is less a matter of mobility
than it is a habit of the heart. I read at my own pace, on my
own device, in my spare time. I read in places normally
reserved for other activitieslike learning, or sleeping, or
cooking. Being guarded by the dull, silver back of my com-
puter or phone, a stoic look on my face does little justice to
the story. But when I read and touch the screen, moving the
words on the page, the story moves me, changing the way I
feel and how I experience everything else:
You know how when something unfamiliar enters your
visionsay a yellow Volkswagenyou then see more of
them? The same is true with language. An unfamiliar term
say pancreatic cancerone day enters your everyday
conversation and then, for no reason I can name, it serves as a
strange attractor, a kind of linguistic magnet, that draws into
505539QIXXXX10.1177/1077800413505539Qualitative InquiryRiggs
research-article2013
1
University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
Corresponding Author:
Nicholas A. Riggs, CIS 3062, Department of Communication, University
of South Florida, 4202 E Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL 33620, USA.
Email: nriggs@mail.usf.edu
Following Bud: Blogging at the End-of-Life
Nicholas A. Riggs
1
Abstract
I show what its like to read Bud Goodalls blog as he writes at the end-of-life. My experience leads me to question what it
means to acknowledge death and how blogging is a particular way of narrating mortality in dialogue with others. I illustrate
how engaging with digital texts can interpolate readers into each others private worlds, stimulate their interpretive faculties
and cultivate rituals of mediated interaction that herald new forms of narrative inquiry rooted in praxis. Reflecting on my
experience, I conclude that blogging at the end-of-life can open an important space for talking about mortality reflexively.
Keywords
autoethnography, ethnographies, methodologies, online ethnography, narrative, methods of inquiry, dialogue, end-of-life
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Riggs 377
your conversational sphere that same term, plus everything
else that is associated with it. In no time you become
knowledgeable about the world of yellow Volkswagens or
pancreatic cancer in ways you never before imagined.
I pause to open a browser window. On YouTube, I search
for a video clip by Bill Hicksthe outlaw stand-up come-
dian who died of pancreatic cancer in 1994. Although Bills
brand of dark humor is making a comeback with comics
like Marc Maron and Louis C. K., he died well before his
time. In one of his more intimate moments with the audi-
ence, he repeats, again and again, that life is just a ride
just a ride, he says, and somedaysomeday soonit will
come to an end. Better not take it too seriously. Better not
worry too much. Ever notice that we always kill those
good guys who try and tell us that? He has a point:
Listen: You and I know that this life we all are living is very
much a one day at a time deal. The restfor all of usis
illusion. So for me and for you the best way through this detour
just outside of Cancerland but in full sight of it is to remain
focused clearly on the here and now, open up the great gift of
the present, and enjoyand I mean really enjoythe ride.
I read Buds voice into the text, which comes through
articulate, jovial, sharp and confident; like an Uncle talking
to a nephew. Hes candidunafraid to be direct. Sometimes
more direct than I want, but thats forgivable. To some
degree, so am I. Neither of us skips the details:
If you discount some brutal wear and tear on some of my
internal organs (tumor on my pancreas, lesions on the liver)
spine (tumor outside pushing in, plus a thin fracture at T8 that
causes the radiating back pain); and pesky cancer spots along
the lower shoulder blades; a few side effects from the chemo
poisoning and extreme radiation heat (chemo brain; neuropathy
in feet, ankles, and hands; changes to my taste buds; minor
sores in the mouth; weight loss and then weight gain and now
weight loss again), I may walk with a cane and avoid using
knives in the kitchen, but Im still a pretty good case of what
the late great southern novelist Barry Hannah once called
insistin on existin. And I plan to get even better. That line
too is meant to be at least a little funny. A little. Come on.
In fact, its my voice mediating his that I hear as I read. I
try to fashion my imagination with the sound of a personal-
ity Ive only ever known through textnot familiar, by any
means, but not unfamiliar, either. I meet Bud there, fully
attentive I can hear a voice speaking from the text . . .
with an indivisible wholeness (Kramer, 2003, p. 61). My
thoughts fill with dialogic overtones that can be heard,
but not just expressed (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 92). Theres no
clear-cut boundary between voices but the spirit of the text
itselfthe breath between me, Bud, and others. The story is
grounded in a sense of humor thats different but similar to
my own. When I laugh, the story becomes my own:
Its kind of like being in a twisted Monty Python film, I say.
What did he die of? (I use by best British accent). Oh, he
had terminal cancer but it was the Advil that killed him.
The story is the thingnot completely therapeutic and
not just diary-writing or journaling, either (boyd, 2006).
Maybe not just a ride, I think. It takes work. Written
work, prepared by someone whos mastered their craft,
poised and polished for publication. Personal work, ori-
ented toward others on different stages of their life, turned
toward the present. Political work, motivated to do some-
thing goodto get the most out of each day, stay mindful of
the larger universe, and be grateful for loved ones. Not a
joband not just something to do in spare time, eitherbut
a calling that ties the one to the many and individual experi-
ence to a larger community. The story is the thingmorally
inseparable from his or her life (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan,
Swidler, & Tipton, 1985, p. 66). As a blog, it resonates from
the keyboard through the screen, hailing me, calling me to
make it my own.
Thats what storytelling does and blogging is good for. It
blurs the line between subject positions in the story and
subject positions outside the story (Peterson, 2010, p. 69).
That means that Bud, me, and everyone else following along
are both narrators and characters of a big story made up of
smaller stories that tap[s] into the deep well of the self and
extract[s] its innermost dimensions (Freeman, 2007, p. 157).
Everybody interactsnot in real time, but in their own
timetelling or listening from inside or outside, attached
and detached as they open and close their hearts; a shared
experience, unique to each person who finds their own stake
in the story. Following along, they share a commitment to a
community of memory, remembering where the journey
began as they hope for a better future (Bellah et al., 1985, pp.
152-153). Memory unifies and destroys the multiplicity of
existence. It makes the other the same; it makes the outside
the inside; the many, the one (Esposito, 2010, p. 59). People
gesture together, in action at a distance, their bodies behind
the screen as they reach out in expression through keyboards
and mice (Peterson, 2010, p. 73). In their own way and their
own timeleft to their own deviceshearts and minds
grow intimate at a distance:
I know Im still working out this end-of-life narrative, and if
you are reading along you are working it out with me, and
maybe theres a simple answer and maybe there isnt, but in the
meantime lets agree to live as we have, as we always have
lived and worked and loved, because one big thing I know is
true, one thing Ive learned so far on this sudden turn into and
trek across Cancerland, is that giving up on who we are is the
surest way to shorten the journey.
As I read I improvise, hearing voices and seeing images
turning thoughts into the scenery behind a field of imagina-
tion. Theres dripping clocks, yellow Volkswagens,
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378 Qualitative Inquiry 20(3)
giant bunnies and haboobs, puppy dogs, giant lasers,
and a cool metal moose. All subjects of posts made one day
at a time, turned into metaphors that capture a deeper mean-
ing, carrying with them a lesson, new understanding, or pur-
pose. The end-of-life is a stage where things play out with no
script: improvisational and driven by the possibility of cure
on one handcomposed and restrained by diagnosis on the
other. The story is somewhere between the now of possibility
and the then of certainty. Then of course is the end of the
storyan end that, sure enough, will come. Death is built
into everyones story as the ultimate telosthe gripping con-
clusion. Most people fear it. They rejoice that it is the next
guy, not me (Kbler-Ross, 1997, p. 28) who gets shot with
the arrow, slips into the sea, or valiantly rides off into the
sunset. As I read, I wonder what its like not to be able to
think that way:
One result is that we have so far mostly triumphed over despair,
depression, anger, railing against the unfairness of life, and
etc., replacing but not entirely erasing those negatives with a
profound gratitude for what we have together and have lived
together and will live together as long as we can. Even though
I would be a big liar if I said I wasnt worried about the way my
personal narrative will end, I can acceptwe have to accept
that one fine day my final sentence too will be interrupted,
probably before I reach the period I had in mind.
Theres a storytelling game that improv actors play
called string of pearls where the audience provides the
beginning and the end of a story. Repeating the intro and
conclusion over and over, the actors come up with the mid-
dle parts until the whole thing is complete. The audience
follows along and shares the responsibility of making it a
good story with their laughter. Their response is part of the
process. Creatively, everyone discovers how it comes
together, knowing from the start how its going to end. In
the same way, every post Bud makes is a new part of the
storya new pearl for the stringadding a bit about what
happens between the beginning and the end-of-life. Writing
over the empty space fills the gap between now and then,
bridging the distance between him and his audience:
Cancer was and continues to be the rude interruption (Art
Bochners apt term for it) in our lives but to see or to understand
this year as only a rude interruption fails to accept the part of
this year that also has been a gift. That gift was all about
answering with our lives this one key question: how best to
spend the rest of our lives together by living fully one day a
time?
He tells the story bit by bit, opening possibilities for
speaking through the silences of everyday conversation
familiar to so many who suffer from terminal illness
(Couser, 1997). Theres a collaboration-driven ethos
(Bacon, 2009, p. 3) about blogging as people follow along,
tell about, listen to, live with, and make sense of the details.
Private experiences are shared in a public space. Its a het-
erotopia somewhere outside the norms of everyday con-
versation, bringing together the many places folks find
themselves in as they read and write, do both, or neither.
Somewhere in the network of relations between myself and
everyone elsesomewhere in the weird, dense networkI
make contact with others, reflecting as a community
(Foucault, 1986), gathered around the text and joining in a
paradox, most certainly alone but undeniably together.
Contexts collapse as we all resign to the tropes of the story:
And its not just the humor that is useful in countering the
silence associated with cancer. Its the ability to make fun of
the grip that my old fear of death had on my life. By no longer
fearing to talk about it, or to be around others who suffer from
it, I gain voice where there was only silence.
Living while dying is a paradox, not a problem. As long
as a paradox is treated as a problem, it can never be dis-
solved (Bohm, 1996, p. 73) because a person caught in a
paradox will inevitably fall into self-deception, aimed at
the creation of illusions that appear to relieve the pain
resulting from the attempt to go on with self-contradiction
(p. 77). There is no illusion to the storyno contradiction.
The end is already in placedeath is certainand the para-
dox is addressed, seen for what it isor better yet, for the
problem that it isntwith free flowing honest thought
about it. On Buds blog someone speaks, someone listens,
and I think about what it means to embrace death as a part
of life:
Until now, I have feared cancer in much the same way as
characters in Harry Potter novels fear he who must not be
named. For me, just saying the word cancer was an
invitation to an unspeakable evil to enter my life, and so it was
a word that was better left unspoken.
Any stage of life could be the end stage. Reading about
life means reading about death, no matter how I frame it.
One is the source of the othera double fear that pushes
everyone into a community of strangers, with a common
obligation to overcome morbid inevitability (Esposito,
2010). Living and dying, I find comfort in compensation,
sharing my life with others. I transfer my fears, burdening
and unburdening myself and others, leaving my mark on the
world by the actions that I take. Together I live in the ser-
vice of others, seeming to overcome the odds, no longer
overwhelmed by [my] loneliness and separation and
negated by the very burden of [my] own life (Becker,
1973, p. 158).
Death, as a part of life, brings into focus those sacrifices
I make to lifes preservationthe ones that immunize me
from realizing the risk of living with a full awareness of its
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Riggs 379
end. The productive relation between preservation and
sacrifice (Esposito, 2010, p. 42) moves me toward others.
I organize and exchange ideas. I shake hands and trade
places. I write posts and make comments. I overlook the
uncertainty of the future, taking advantage of the present,
and the story I live follows the story I tell myself about
myself in the presence of others I cant see. Human agency
embodied in the Self is always mediated by an efficacy
embodied in the Other (Lanigan, 2010, p. 124). When sto-
ries come together, people come together. The possibility of
death becomes an opportunity to live; a reason to be grate-
ful, happy, and lucky; a reason to recognize everyone else;
a chance to give thanks in exchange for whats already been
taken; not merely a fated outcome of a terminal existence:
I believe that narratives have trajectories. In their most ordinary
guise, narratives begin in conflict and move through a series of
events toward some resolution or ending. So, too, do the stories
of our lives. Perhaps more important, the way we tell our
stories has a direct impact on how they turn out. So much so
that narrative medicine is now an accepted part of patient
therapy.
A friend once told me that when she was diagnosed with
cancer, there was a strange sense of comfort that came over
her because at least I knew what was wrong, she said. The
diagnosis gave her an agendaa treatment plan with
expected outcomes and recommendations. Anger set in
when shed think about leaving her friends and family
behind to take care of everything in her absence. She
described the pain from treatment as a simultaneous burn-
ing and freezing under her skin. She had countless tales
about living with chemo brain, other peoples reactions to
her diagnosis, and the challenge of coping with the side
effects of long-term prescriptions and annual check-ups.
She didnt want to be defined by her illness after shed gone
into remission. Honestly, she said, there is more to me
than the fact that I had cancer. I couldnt completely under-
stand at first, but now, being with Bud, I have an idea:
While this disease is no longer abstract we do not allow it to
define our lives. We live with cancer. I take the treatments,
swallow the meds, wear the fanny pack, suffer the tiredness
and discomfort, and spend time in a clinic hooked up to
machines sharing experiences and telling stories.
Stories about illnessmy friends, Buds, otherspro-
vide clues to the mystery of what I might do if I were in
their situation. Im anxiously aware of my own strengths
and weaknesses, as well as my own willingness to confront
darker realities that somedayperhaps even someday
soonmight mean being diagnosed with something. There
is a sense of hypervigilance that comes over me as I read,
turning me toward the inevitability of everyday life coming
to an end. That end could very well include a terminal
illness. I can never know what role I might play in my own
end-of-life story, but I wonder; I wonder what it would be
like; I try to wish it away but the thoughts linger. Its a ner-
vous kind of introspectiona wonder that makes it hard to
talk to others without wearing my heart on my sleeve. The
limits to empathy and the fear of the unknown become sur-
prisingly clear when I contemplate the dark possibility that
the light at the end of the tunnel may be a shade of a differ-
ent color than I imagine it is. The look on my face gives
reality away and part of me wants to stop reading:
Heres the thing: Chemo is a four-letter profanity masked as a
five-letter friend. No one likes it, not in the Clinic or on
Facebook. We fear it. We tolerate it because it promises a
longer life and in most cases that Ive witnessed a longer
quality of life. But to achieve that desired result requires
opening your veins to a poison regime that seizes control of
your body and mind, unleashes an army of silent killers inside
of you, and sometimes can be very unpleasant afterward, for
you and for those around you, for days at time. And, with a
cancer such as mine, in the end you die. Those are the facts.
Together, on Buds blog, folks collaborate to make sense
of an uncertain puzzle. When the experience of life is cut
into piecesscattered about in canceled trips, prolonged
treatments, side effects, and lack of sleepit becomes clear
that living is a larger project. Blogging at the end-of-life is
a group effort to discover what makes life worth living.
Each post is in itself equipment for living (Burke, 1976),
figures of speech where the motive is to understand the
active nature of death in life. People write to live, together,
reconstructing the puzzle piece by piece:
Fate may well be a story we tell and when it is used to account
for falling in love, or why we take in a stray animal, or who we
become in this life, perhaps the better metric for evaluating it is
not whether it carries the weight of a laboratory truth but
instead, as the narrative theorist Walter Fisher puts it, does it
hang together as a story and does it ring true? Which is to
say does it work for us? Does it help us make sense of our
lives?
All stories, and lives for that matter, entail some sort of
quest for making sense of purpose in the world, searching
for meaning in life, or exploring the essence of virtue and
morality (McIntyre, 1984; Taylor, 1989). In a dialogue at
the end-of-life, that quest is confirmed in the journey itself
as the spirit of the conversation comes into formas a blog
comment, Facebook post, lunch table conversation, class
discussion, conference program, academic paper, or memo-
rializing publication. All are versions of the story that nar-
rate lessons lived as lessons learned. People embody
conversation as they take up their own agenda, giving oth-
ers a glimpse of their own story and Buds, gesturing for
others to join in. As they follow along, they hang together.
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380 Qualitative Inquiry 20(3)
Others add and subtract from the story as essential play-
ers in its drama but theyre never completely cognizant of
the actual roles they play for the Other. Bud tells his story
with openness, grace, and dignity, trusting in those he cant
seeand in some cases, will never see. He meets them on
the blog, through the text, turned-toward at a distance,
turned away from the separation, solitude, and self-preoc-
cupation seemingly built-in to digital technology use
(Turkle, 2011) and terminal illness (Couser, 1997). Blogging
at the end-of-life is an enterprise of intimate solitude;
through the web, people reach each other, pulling each other
out of the death throes of dread (Becker, 1973, p. 258)
and into a living text:
So tonight, and every day and night, lets celebrate that twinkle,
lets celebrate life. For it is in our celebrations that life itself is
justly rewarded, our connection to each other honored, and our
miraculous lives become truly blessed.
Conversation carries on in a stream of conscious aware-
ness about treatment, existence, and death itself; about what
its like to be a Chemosabe and sit in the Room of
Orange Chairs, to engage in an ongoing search for The
Big It, to contemplate what will happen when its time for
The Great Whoosh, and to cope with the maladies of Big
Pharma. In a second language (Bellah et al., 1985, p.
154), Bud transcends the symbolic confines of his world
and his conditions, giving back to the community a gram-
mar of experience that orders and codes the practical reali-
ties or new normal of cancer treatment, the politics of
being ill in society, and inquiries into the afterlife. His story
is ours, confirmed in our overt, conscious, unconscious, and
symbolic responses to it (Leary, 1957)a clever and evoca-
tive expansion of experience, towards more life (Becker,
1973, p. 263):
Chemosabe. So now you know, too. Its a great word, isnt it?
A great rhetorical invention that reveals a creative contribution
to our shared culture, to our shared belief about positive
attitude. Stories and humor are important to fighting this
disease by living as fully and as well as we can inside and
outside of our clinic community. We may not outlive our
cancer, most of us wont, but we can learn from each other and
maybe even leave something memorable behind.
Of course, language has its limitsit only communi-
cates the particular linguistic being of things (Benjamin,
2012, p. 234), not how they may actually be. The story
reveals the uncertainty that comes from confronting a bald
reality that I and most others take for granted: that my life is
unique and that it has a particular significance outside of my
own finite province of meaning (Berger & Luckmann,
1967), that Im resigned to others experience just as much
as I am to my own, that Ill live forever as others carry on
my quest well after Im gone, or simply that Ill
be remembered. Coming to grips with my own mortality is
difficult not because these things arent true, but because to
fully realize them I have to suspend my belief in them,
humoring the dark possibility that tomorrow, or the next
dayor perhaps even todayIll be gone and none of my
desires will matter. Casting off the illusion of immortality
opens me to a universe of possibilities, vulnerable to
changes of heart and mind, no longer protected by the story
of myself that Ive garnered my whole lifethe one where
Im the hero who defeats death; where I transfer my power
to others through my work, my love, and my faith; the one
without a diagnosis.
At times, there just isnt the language to explain what
its like to live at the endnot because Buds posts are
inauthentic or disingenuous stories for an interfaced, rather
than face-to-face, audience; but because understanding
takes empathy. Turning toward others, reading the blog, and
putting myself in Buds shoes tests my humility more than
my intelligence. Genuine dialogue lays between me and
others, in the relational grace that arises from, generates,
and supports genuine interhuman meetings (Kramer, 2003,
p. 162). Blogging at the end-of-life means facing the terror
of the beyondthe one thats there between usbeyond
our computer screens, beyond our total understanding,
beyond the limits of living. It means letting myself be
healed and to be whole, through heroic self-expansion in
the other (Becker, 1973, p. 157):
Imagine that you are me. Full-bodied me. Post chemo-treatment
me, which is to say the full-bodied me that I become every
other week after a thorough poisoning. Imagine that you wake
up and find that your full-bodied me has become a cockroach.
No, that was Kafka. Sorry. But there are days when Id gladly
trade for cockroach. Poisons dont kill them, either. But, no.
I look for ways to cope with the tension that comes from
acknowledging poor decisions Ive made in my life: times
Ive been careless, or abandoned my inhibitions for the
immediate satisfaction of pleasure; times I had one more
drink, decided to smoke that last cigarette; times when I
knew better. Personal experience is a double edged sword
that never seems to stop swinging. I cant escape decades of
fast food, lack of exercise, or all of the questionable sub-
stances I ingested in college. What Ive done is what Ive
done, without question:
Doc, how long do I have? is not a very good question to ask
if you truly want an answer. There is never one answer to that
question about how long. And any answer you might conjure
up, calculate, or guess at is not simple. It cant be. The one
simple answer you do have is that you simply have cancer. I
can name its Stage (in my case, Stage 4); I can learn to
understand CA-19/9 markers (although these markers are not
always accurate for any one individual); I can look at and
analyze CT-scans, bone scans, PET scans, and xrays; I can talk
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Riggs 381
about treatment options and try new and different ways of
beating back the rogue proteins and reducing tumors and the
rest of it; but there is no certainty to this damned disease other
than this one: I have cancer. Oh, and that it is going to kill me
one of these days. Its enough to make you rent a smaller house.
Uncertainty is itself a foreboding consequence of mod-
ern living. Every time I rub my chest, feel my neck, or
tongue the roof of my mouth I look for something new,
something out of place, something that shouldnt be there;
I look in a mirror, finding inconsistencies in my skin, feel-
ing a sharp, cold warning shot of dread shoot up my spine.
It disappears, gone, and I try to calm my nerves. A freckle .
. . a scar . . . a cold sore . . . Just your imagination, I tell
myself.
Of course, I dont have cancermy health isnt a prob-
lem right now. Im one of the lucky ones who doesnt get
sick, doesnt go to the doctordoesnt need to and wont
waste the money; or maybe I just dont want bad news. The
more I read the more I worry; the more I think about my
habitswhat I eat, what I drink, where I live, how much
sleep I get, how much stress I manage on a daily basis. I
dream up phantom symptoms, drenching my imagination in
paranoia that comes from tapping into the potential of my
own mortality. Making contact with others through stories
of illness opens a window that overlooks the possibility of a
more full life, but at the same time, I see in that window a
reflection that unveils the darker, uncanny reality. How
death comes isnt something that I can choose, nor is it
something I can control:
This doesnt mean I ignore or discount or turn away from the
negative news. It means I dont dwell on it. I dont give into it.
And I dont define who I am by it. Look: I know where my
story is headed and I have a pretty good idea on how it ends.
But today, Im still well enough to enjoy the awe and all of life,
and to work on improving it both here andif the weird
science part of the story is correctmaybe also in the afterlife.
The age old image that theres a light at the end of the
tunnel doesnt necessarily mean its angelic; its more like
light that lines the rows of movie theaters, illuminating
moments of meeting between people looking outward
together in the same direction (Saint-Exupery, 1939, p.
215). Buds blog exposes those moments in slices of time,
shedding light on the fact that living while dying can mean
making new friends, taking on new roles in the lives of oth-
ers, and helping them find poise and comfort as they take a
seat between certainty and uncertainty. In the end, People
create the reality they need in order to discover themselves
(Becker, 1973, p. 158). When they meet through the text, on
the blog, they do it together. There is no comradeship
except through union in the same high effort (Saint-
Exupery, 1939, p. 215):
If I die tomorrow afternoon or six months from now or a year
from now or whatever, we wouldnt change a thing about
living our lives as we now live them, nor would we alter our
commitment to live this way and this well together for as long
as we can. Why would we? Why would anyone? What I hope
for and have worked for is a better world . . . and I dont intend
to stop working for that more perfect world just because I am
probably not long for living in it. Neither should you.
Buds story isnt just about life and death; it is life and
death. Its my story, his story, and our story all the same. As
a part of that story, I share the one thing that all people have
in common, seeing in the other person the self-transcend-
ing life process (Becker, 1973, p. 157) that provides some
sense of security. Blogging is a practical way of coping with
the inescapable paradox of living while dyingan environ-
ment of fear which is, undoubtedly, exacerbated by modern
technology. Through the blog, I read with the story at a
pace that matches the acceleration of reality (Virilio,
2012, p. 34). I experience the end of anothers life with
hypervigilance. Preoccupied with deadlines, headline news,
status updates, newsfeeds, and notifications, the technology
at my discretion occupies me, trips me up, and throws me
back on my heels. Its a constant struggle between falling
behind, running late, and staying ahead of the curve. Buds
blog opens a space that gives me pause in all of that to sal-
vage a few moments for myself; Im filled by the words of
others; I lose [my] isolation and keep it at the same time
(Becker, 1973, p. 155). I make room for stories that make
the strange familiar:
A rich and meaningful life is one in which we contribute to
others and accept with gratitude what they give back to us, help
them achieve understandings, goals, and pleasure in their lives
and in so doing see clearly how such cooperation allows us to
achieve our own. It is a relational life lesson and perhaps one of
lifes most important lessons.
Community means sharing and sharing means commu-
nity. Its a social formation without origin, sustained by a
human obligation to gather in fear of deaths consequence
(Esposito, 2010). Sharing Buds story, I expose the vital
lie (Becker, 1973) that life really isthe story I tell myself
about myself that makes me a hero in my own eyes, able to
overcome anxiety, deny the terror of death, and go on living
in spite of its menacing inevitability. I realize for myself
that its just a ride, but its not one I take alone. Alone
togetherintimate at a distancewe cover for each other
and share with a community, transferring hope and faith as
we stare into the abyss of the unknown, trembling on the
brink of oblivionwhich is at the same time the brink of
infinity (p. 91). Through the text I discover a vulnerability
that, in between Now and Then, Self and Other, brings the
story to life:
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382 Qualitative Inquiry 20(3)
Yet I know that this death scene scenario-setting is pure hubris
and also unnecessary. I can no more control the end-of-life than
I controlled life. Fortunately for me, I was never much into
control. What I have always been about is the lived experience,
the resulting story, and the knowledge that much in our lives is
about recognizing and coping with ambiguity until it isnt
ambiguous anymore. At that point in this imagined end-of-
life scenario, I just close my eyes and go with it. I dont
even know what to call it, but lately the Great Whoosh!
keeps popping into my head. And, for some reason, that
language makes me smile.
Blogging at the end-of-life is no way to answer impos-
sible questions. But thinking about what it means to live
while dyingbeing part of that storyopens me to the inti-
mate possibility that the most any of us can do is create
conditions for living that acknowledge death, instead of
deny it. I have my own calling and my own followers. I
have my own story to share. At a distancethrough the
blogI see others like me getting a glimpse of the end-of-
life, and they gesture for me to respond:
***
About to turn in for the night, I grab my cell phone off
the ground where its charging. My old roommate sent me a
text about an hour ago that I didnt notice until just now:
Goodall passed away this morning, huh? Sorry, man.
The words jab at my stomach, knocking the wind out of
me for a brief moment. I find my breath and shake my head,
exhaling, turning around, and falling on the bed.
Jesus, I say, exacerbated, Bud Goodall died.
My girlfriend sits up, struck by my abruptness. I cant
believe how sudden it happened. Im not sure how to
respond, but I know that feeling in my chesta reflex to
jump up and stop something bad from happening. Its too
late, though. Its done. I shut my eyes to fall asleep and spend
some time thinking about Bud. My first thought is that Im
grateful I got the chance to talk to him about my paper.
That was only four days ago, I think.
When I wake up in the morning, its like it never hap-
pened. I eat breakfast, get showered, and pack my bags to
get ready for the long drive home. I say goodbye to my
brother, the kids, and the animals, not sure when Ill see
them again. Im never sure of how to say goodbye and
thank you in any way that does justice to the gratitude I
feel for the people I love. Its embarrassing, considering that
I write about death and teach classes about love and com-
munication, but Ive come to expect it. I pull away from the
house, as usual, wishing I knew better.
When I pull up to a drive-through for a bagel and coffee,
the conversation with my girlfriend wanders into reflections
about the trip were about to complete. We try to tease out
how each other felt about the others families, having met
them for the first time. I scan my memory over the past few
days thinking about what weve done and where weve
been and suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, I remember
Bud.
I stay in the car as she heads inside to buy a souvenir
mug. With a spare minute, I decide to check the blog, imag-
ining that his wife has posted something. First, I notice a
number of emails from colleagues whove known that Ive
been working closely with his blog for the past few months.
They each express their condolences and I feel a strange
upwelling of appreciation; in the moment, though, Im not
sure if what I feel is lossIm not sure if it should be loss
considering that I didnt really know Bud. I knew his words
and my version of his voiceand the affect his journey had
on me. Its a voice Ive grown fond of and think about often
and his posts have always pushed me to question what was
important in my life. Following Bud has helped me to real-
ize whats good about the life Im living despite my inabil-
ity to express it. Searching for that voice, trying to reconnect
somehow, I dont find it. It isnt there. In its place is an
image of the man himselfthe picture from the homepage
of his blog. He looks back at me with a clever grin, as if to
say Thats it! Hope you were listening! The rest is for you
to find out for yourself.
For the first time since I heard what happened, I feel a
sinking feeling and my eyes well up. I feel open up to a
world of emotion Ive kept closed for a long time. This trip
has meant coping with the reality of being absent in the
lives of my family and friends. Since Ive moved so far
away, there just hasnt been much time. I regret not getting
the most out of myself for them, ashamed that I didnt know
better to tell them that I love them. Withholding seems
ridiculous.
Maybe I wasnt really listening? I must have missed
something. Maybe I havent learned anything, I think.
Except for the birds outside the car, theres silence as I
read his wifes words:
We were so blessed to have had the time we did. Our lives have
been forever changed by the past year. Our little family had so
many conversations, talked about so many important things
over the past fourteen months and a myriad of small things
that, at the time seemed so insignificant, but down the road will
add to our loving memory of Bud as husband, father, and
friend.
As the car door opens I put my phone away. My girl-
friend gets in and I smile, asking about the mug in her
hand, trying to change my own subject. She says that
they didnt have the one she wanted, so she settled for a
large mouth porcelain coffee cup with the word Ohio
scripted on the side in scarlet and gray. Somethings
better than nothing, she says, nonchalantly, as we pull
into the road.
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Riggs 383
Something is better than nothing. I say.
Hours go by. We trade off driving responsibilities each
time we pass a state line. I forge through readings for the
upcoming semester and take advantage of spots between
mountains where I find cell service long enough to check
my email. Each time I get online, I hold myself back from
the blog. Finally, at a gas station in Georgia, I sit alone in
the passenger seat and finish reading the final post. I long
for someone to share mixed emotions with; someone who
can speak my muddled language; someone who followed
Bud and knew him the way that I did.
Back on the road, we cross the Florida state line. I stare
back at the image in my minda mental projection of a
man I wanted to know better. I cant stop from thinking
back to an email Bud and I sharedone of the only times
we got in touch. He responded to my paper, offering sug-
gestions with wonderful words of wisdom and compliments
about the story. In my memory I cant make out the begin-
ning or the middle, but the end of the message is still clear:
OK. So thats it. I hope my comments are useful. But thanks
again for taking the time to read my blog and to think about it.
Thats the best a writer can hope for. Well, that and a few
million dollars in sales . . . LOL!
I think about all of the emails from colleagues, all of the
work Ive doneall of the reading, writing, annotating, col-
lecting, coding, copying, pasting, presenting, and talking to
Buds colleagues about his life. Despite all of it, I dont
know how to act. How should I feel about the loss of a per-
son I didnt really know? What am I supposed to do? Are
the feelings genuine? Should I be ashamed? Have my expe-
riences really been intimate? Or is virtual conversation
just an illusiona figment of my imagination? Are all of us
digital natives just fooling ourselves? I look at my girlfriend
as she sleeps without answers.
Nearing Tampa, we pass familiar landmarks and signs,
getting down to the last miles of the trip. In my mind, I repeat
the paper title over and over to myself, following the rhythm
of the road; as if repeating the words will reveal some kernel
of truth, some overlooked detail buried in my mind. I want
insight and I want to feel resolvedsomething to assure me
that what Ive experienced hasnt just been a delusion. Staring
up into the first red light for hours I realize that Following
Bud is not just a metaphor for reading a blog; following Bud
was a way of being present in a conversation about a persons
life if, for no other reason, than to carry it forward.
That, I think, is the best a writer can hope for.
Acknowledgments
Id like to thank Bud Goodall for his gracious response to my nar-
rative, as well as Carolyn Ellis, Art Bochner, Jennifer Whalen and
Dave Steinweg for their help developing earlier drafts.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biography
Nicholas A. Riggs is a doctoral student at the University of South
Florida in the department of communication. His interests entail
narrative, dialogue, and digital technology, as well as end-of-life
and interpersonal communication.
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