We had a bereavement in the family last week. It was a big shock and still hasn't sunk in. The oddest thing is that there is a Facebook account for the person, and it's still active, and it is compelling to keep looking at it. People have started putting up tributes and photos, which is nice, but a bit weird to me. And on my own account, I don't really want to mention it as firstly I don't want to look like I am fishing for sympathy, and I have a mixed collection of friends on there and I don't necessarily want them all to know. I didn't post anything for a while, but now I'm back to my usual pithy remarks and putting photos up of the Olympic Torch going past the bottom of the road. But then I think, to people that do know, I must look bad making jokes and going on as normal. But what else can you do? Even if I put something on there about what happened, eventually everyone would go back to the usual dross that we all like to stick online.
Social media vastly complicates the bad times. But it can also help, as lots of friends I didn't know have sent lovely messages. But some people also like to speculate about stuff, and really have no thought for the people that could be upset about it. And do you know how hard it is to close down an account without the password? Bloody hard that's what. And you can't even really close it down, they "memorialise" it so people can still see it.
I'm going back to pen and paper like a Luddite. Probably.
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