More Than Unfriended....Death of a Facebook Friend
We had such a great holiday weekend that I was too busy playing outdoors to go online until Monday morning. When I checked Facebook, I was stunned to learn of the death of a high school classmate. Another classmate and mutual Facebook friend announced that Jeff had died over the weekend. It was beyond unthinkable.
We had a reunion last summer - nothing formal, just a gathering at a local bar. It was so great to reconnect with old classmates, even if most of them were people I didn't know well in school. Familiar, friendly faces. I knew Jeff in grade school, and when I saw him at the reunion and met his wife, I thought, "how can I get to know these interesting people better?" You always think you'll have more time.
Having read the announcement, I went to his Facebook page, which his wife had posted to, letting his friends know what had happened. And then I began to see an interesting phenomenon unfold - the online memorial, Facebook style. I know from experience how hard it is to tell bad news to each and every person that you know, face to face and one or two at a time. It's devastating. I felt so glad that she had an easier way to face that ugly task. And then I read the messages that followed, like flowers laid on a memorial site. Messages from people I knew when I was 7 years old, from people I only knew as his Facebook friends, from people whose names I remembered from school, but couldn't recall their faces or anything else about them. And then I started to see profile pictures change - everyone who had a photo of themselves with Jeff posted it as a profile picture.
People who hear the story and didn't know Jeff all say the same thing. It's always the happy, outgoing people who are crying inside, hiding their pain behind jokes and denial. I want to say, "but you didn't know Jeff - that's not how he was." Jeff's death, you see, was a suicide. According to his wife, his anti-depression meds weren't doing the trick and for whatever reason, he hadn't fixed it yet. Probably for the same reason I haven't changed my oil yet or packed away my daughter's 6-month old clothes. Life is just happening too fast. And then I realized that I also didn't know Jeff so well. Sure, I knew him when I was 7 years old, maybe 6. And I knew him all the way up until I was 18 years old and graduated high school. This isn't a person I have to rack my brain to remember. His mother volunteered at our grade school, his older brother was in the grade ahead of us. I saw him once or twice on campus in college and ran in to his brother more often over the years. Until the reunion, though, I hadn't seen him in decades. But we were Facebook friends. And he did Facebook so very well.
Probably at least twice a day, Jeff posted hilarious stories about what happened to him today. He's sitting in court and realizes he has one black sock on and the other is his wife's navy blue nylon. He doesn't mind being hit on by strange men at the gym, but why to they always look like George Costanza and never Brad Pitt? Embarrassing questions his son innocently asks him about sex. Advice about how to finish the vintage banana seat bike he's bought for his daughter. Sometimes his posts were more intellectual observations about politics or religion, and debate that he'd have with others on that - always respectfully delivered. It was clear that he was a very smart, funny person who loved his wife and his kids so much. His last 2 posts - he's found Saddam's WMDs at a firecracker stand in Englewood. His new neighbor who is shooting off fireworks is going to learn how his neighbor who is a state trooper feels about illegal fireworks very shortly. And then, his wife, posting the bad news.
I was glad when other classmates posted that they'd returned to his page time and again to try to understand what happened. I felt a little like a stalker, if you can stalk the deceased. It became a place both public and private to mourn and contemplate his life and his mind. I started to notice that there was almost no one from our high school who wasn't his Facebook friend. It didn't seem to matter what class they were in or who they were friends with in school - he was friendly with everyone.
When you get the daily details of someone's life, you start to feel you know them pretty well - maybe that's just an illusion. His wife continues to use his page to thank people for their well wishes, maintain contact with his friends. And to mourn herself. This silly little social media tool has unexpectedly connected a community in a surprising way. I'm sure it happens like this everyday when Facebook users pass on, but this effect can't have been planned or anticipated.
We had a reunion last summer - nothing formal, just a gathering at a local bar. It was so great to reconnect with old classmates, even if most of them were people I didn't know well in school. Familiar, friendly faces. I knew Jeff in grade school, and when I saw him at the reunion and met his wife, I thought, "how can I get to know these interesting people better?" You always think you'll have more time.
Having read the announcement, I went to his Facebook page, which his wife had posted to, letting his friends know what had happened. And then I began to see an interesting phenomenon unfold - the online memorial, Facebook style. I know from experience how hard it is to tell bad news to each and every person that you know, face to face and one or two at a time. It's devastating. I felt so glad that she had an easier way to face that ugly task. And then I read the messages that followed, like flowers laid on a memorial site. Messages from people I knew when I was 7 years old, from people I only knew as his Facebook friends, from people whose names I remembered from school, but couldn't recall their faces or anything else about them. And then I started to see profile pictures change - everyone who had a photo of themselves with Jeff posted it as a profile picture.
People who hear the story and didn't know Jeff all say the same thing. It's always the happy, outgoing people who are crying inside, hiding their pain behind jokes and denial. I want to say, "but you didn't know Jeff - that's not how he was." Jeff's death, you see, was a suicide. According to his wife, his anti-depression meds weren't doing the trick and for whatever reason, he hadn't fixed it yet. Probably for the same reason I haven't changed my oil yet or packed away my daughter's 6-month old clothes. Life is just happening too fast. And then I realized that I also didn't know Jeff so well. Sure, I knew him when I was 7 years old, maybe 6. And I knew him all the way up until I was 18 years old and graduated high school. This isn't a person I have to rack my brain to remember. His mother volunteered at our grade school, his older brother was in the grade ahead of us. I saw him once or twice on campus in college and ran in to his brother more often over the years. Until the reunion, though, I hadn't seen him in decades. But we were Facebook friends. And he did Facebook so very well.
Probably at least twice a day, Jeff posted hilarious stories about what happened to him today. He's sitting in court and realizes he has one black sock on and the other is his wife's navy blue nylon. He doesn't mind being hit on by strange men at the gym, but why to they always look like George Costanza and never Brad Pitt? Embarrassing questions his son innocently asks him about sex. Advice about how to finish the vintage banana seat bike he's bought for his daughter. Sometimes his posts were more intellectual observations about politics or religion, and debate that he'd have with others on that - always respectfully delivered. It was clear that he was a very smart, funny person who loved his wife and his kids so much. His last 2 posts - he's found Saddam's WMDs at a firecracker stand in Englewood. His new neighbor who is shooting off fireworks is going to learn how his neighbor who is a state trooper feels about illegal fireworks very shortly. And then, his wife, posting the bad news.
I was glad when other classmates posted that they'd returned to his page time and again to try to understand what happened. I felt a little like a stalker, if you can stalk the deceased. It became a place both public and private to mourn and contemplate his life and his mind. I started to notice that there was almost no one from our high school who wasn't his Facebook friend. It didn't seem to matter what class they were in or who they were friends with in school - he was friendly with everyone.
When you get the daily details of someone's life, you start to feel you know them pretty well - maybe that's just an illusion. His wife continues to use his page to thank people for their well wishes, maintain contact with his friends. And to mourn herself. This silly little social media tool has unexpectedly connected a community in a surprising way. I'm sure it happens like this everyday when Facebook users pass on, but this effect can't have been planned or anticipated.
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