Goodbye Steve Jobs
For me, going on vacation means unplugging. In my daily personal life and in my day job, I’m a social media, blogging maniac, online at my desk and on my phone pretty much from the moment I wake to when I go to sleep at night. So this year, I chose to take a week holiday in Vermont, courtesy of some friends in Boston (thank you Jane!), to allow me some peace and quiet in the beautiful setting of tree-lined countrysides, where the leaves were just changing into their fall colors.
But my web-free holiday came crashing down when out to pick up dinner at a quaint Wilmington pizzeria, my boyfriend’s phone began to buzz with breaking news updates from his Twitter feed. Steve Jobs had died.
I sank into the wooden booth and pulled out my phone and we both began scrolling through our Twitter feeds, news websites, and Facebook pages to get more details. We knew it was coming. I was crushed when Jobs resigned from Apple at the end of August and I think everyone went into denial about the real meaning of the move – he was dying.
And now it was official, Jobs lost his 7 year battle with pancreatic cancer. This amazing mind, this creative force who inspired us all to think different and live our own dream could not invent something to end this disease that has taken so many great ones.
The rest of my evening was spent in our quiet Vermont house online and in stunned silence, surfing the wave of postings as the news spread. With everyone having a voice now through social media, the grief was literal and instantaneous. It brought me to tears. Yet I felt comforted in sharing the loss with so many I didn’t even know by adding to the Twitter string.
Jobs will be remembered for how he completely revolutionized our culture. He changed the way we work and socialize, how we listen to music, talk on the phone, connect and share every moment of our lives – even the moment we hear of his passing.
A few days later, I am in New York City and feel it’s important to make the pilgrimage to the 24/hr Apple store on 5th Avenue to pay my respects. A remembrance area filled with flowers, notes and of course, apples, lined the entrance to the store. And I am compelled to leave a note of my own:
“You inspired us all. Thank you Steve.”
Think different,
Kastle