Grieving on the Internet

Grieving Feels Much Too Intimate for the Internet

You are never prepared to lose the person who loves you most in the world. Last week, my father passed away peacefully and surrounded by all of us, his loving family. He’d been ill for several years, and yet, we were blindsided by the loss.
 
There are so many decisions to make after someone dies. In the midst of intense mourning, you’re picking out urns, designing memorial cards, signing documents, planning a memorial. I spent the week following his passing going through old photographs and scanning them so that I could make a slideshow full of memories. I also spent those tough days reaching out to loved ones one by one to give them the news.
 
Deciding how to make this news “public” is another decision that the grieving have to make. My mother wanted to post an obituary in the newspaper, which seemed like a nice gesture to me. “But nobody even reads the newspaper anymore,” my sister said.
 
“Are you going to post anything on Facebook?” I asked my sister, a few days after our father’s passing. “I’m not sure,” she responded. “But I think so.”
 
I wasn’t sure either. I decided not to decide; there were enough difficult decisions to make. Instead, I continued reaching out to the people in our lives – past and present. I contacted my father’s former bosses, for whom he’d spent decades working with, and received beautiful messages in return; my father had been more of a friend to them than an employee – a part of their family. I reached out to friends from my elementary school years who remembered my father as a constant figure at our school. Some of their parents came to the memorial that we held in his honor. I called and messaged my father’s friends and family members, both here and abroad in Belgium. I was buoyed by the love and support shown to our family by all who knew and loved my father.
 
I shared with a writing partner about not having posted anything about my father’s passing on Facebook, and she shared an experience about learning of a good friend’s passing via the social network. I’ve also had that experience and it was indeed very shocking. I think the impersonal action of scrolling through your news feed and learning about a dear friend’s death—or even an acquaintance’s passing—is a shock to the system, which I suppose any bad news can be. But somehow delivering the news personally to friends and family one by one felt right to me.
 
About a week after my father’s passing, my sister posted a message on Facebook about my father’s passing. We share many Facebook friends in common, and people who I had not contacted reached out to me to share their condolences. Again, I was grateful for the love and support. The grapevine is long and tangled, and I received messages of support from friends of friends, and from a friend’s aunt who offered insight that has heartened me in my moments of darkness. It’s interesting the way that people have come out of the woodwork to share their own stories of loss and life after loss; somehow, these stories have found me and they’ve given me hope that my relationship with my father does not have to end after his passing.
 
After someone passes, each task makes it seem more final. First, the body gets taken away. Then, there’s letting our loved ones know. Planning the memorial. Each task seems like a step in the direction of this new reality, a reality that I have no desire to live in. Perhaps I avoided posting anything on Facebook because of the finality of letting everyone I’ve ever known about my father’s passing. Truthfully, though, I think it’s because I couldn’t handle the avalanche of condolences – sad faces and xoxo’s and RIPs.
 
My heart feels heaviest in the presence of someone who knows I am hurting – who acknowledges my loss and allows me to do the same. Yesterday, I went to a baby shower and many of the people in attendance knew my dad and knew of his passing. Receiving hugs from them all made my heart hurt.
 
Social media feels like too public of an outlet for me to share my loss right now, which feels so raw and fresh. I am finding solace in sharing with close friends, writing in my journal, and praying. This grieving process feels intensely private and intimate to me, one that I am willing to share but not out loud and with a bullhorn.
 
It just occurred to me that I did post about my father’s death on social media – on two Facebook groups. One is for daughters who are caregivers to family members. The group offered their condolences and guided me toward another group specifically for caregivers after our loved one has passed. It’s strange that I felt more comfortable sharing my loss with a group of strangers than I did with my own network of friends and acquaintances, but it also makes sense. I feel drawn to people who were going through a similar struggle as mine. Even if they’re strangers, their able to offer more than sad faces and RIPs. They share their own experiences living in this new reality, and hearing their stories gives me the strength to keep walking in this strange new territory.

Captain Patrice Gabriel Guiol
 

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