Kim White RIP @kimcankickit
Technology is funny. It can make communicating with people so effortless and at the same time isolate us in our individual cyber worlds on Instagram or Facebook. Some of these “worlds” have very real emotional connections where the screen and the message become a conduit for real life experiences.
At Christmas after the holiday rush in a quiet moment to myself, I let this woman, Kim White, into my life through a “discover” video on Instagram @kimcankickit (see December 16th, 2019).
I was intrigued by this woman who was just laying it down for real about people’s comments on her account. She was fighting cancer you see. And a lot of people had opinions about everything in her life, (she did put herself out there and was fully willing to take responsibility for it). I liked her because she challenged those people and did it her way, all the way. She died six weeks later as people do, but she did not leave this earth without touching millions of people, including me.
If it weren’t for technology I would never have had this profound experience of being invited into this woman’s every day life with all the good, bad and the ugly that comes with cancer and still being a wife, a mother, a daughter and a friend all at once. I am very thankful for what she showed us with absolute courage even in her fear.
But, here’s the rub with technology, here I sit grieving for a woman I never met in real life and nobody I know, knows her. This is the isolation part of technology. So, I check in on her Instagram account and read the condolences and read her obituary and read her husband’s grief stricken posts and tell my husband that I am sad for this woman and her family and then I make art to deal with my own feelings of her dying.
I designed this collage based on Kim’s January 6th, 2020 Instagram post where she is preparing for a big surgery singing and dancing the anxiety away to Macklemore feat. Skylar Grey – Glorious.