Dying on Facebook, Gen X, and heart emojis
A good friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that someone he knew and cared for had died. He had opened Facebook, and learned of her death, when he had expected to see posts of people’s lives. And this has happened to me, too. I’ve wished happy birthday to someone who had died. I’ve seen the deaths of people that I knew somewhat, and people that I knew incredibly well. And it occurred to me, Reader, that my generation, Gen X/Flux (it’s unclear. Late 70s. We who grew up without cell phones and computers in our homes, but got them in high school (or middle school) and college), my generation is the first generation that will see itself die on social media.
Now, Reader, I realize that many older people are on social media as well, but also, many of them are not. My mother still reads the obituaries in the newspaper to find out deaths. But my generation, I don’t think many of us do. Although everyone I know who has lost a parent has posted an obituary, I don’t think we habitually read that section of the paper, partly because I don’t think we all habitually read the paper. Or if we do, we read it digitally, and probably don’t check that section. I could be wrong. I’m a digital reader of front page, headlines, breaking news, special interest, and games, so what do I know?
It’s a weird thing to think about, though. We also grieve on social media now. I remember when my grandparents died, before Facebook, I grieved mostly alone. My family knew, of course, and some friends. But I struggled to share my grief, and no one, including myself, knew what to do with it. Especially not my family. Grief wasn't something we discussed.
When my great-grandmother died, I was 13. I may have discovered the internet by this point, maybe not. I remember going to her funeral and feeling so tired. I didn’t yet know how sadness could be exhausting. I remember wearing a dress and sitting in a folding chair and staring at the floor after other people stood up. I remember struggling to keep my eyes open, and my father noticing, and telling me that I was an embarrassment to him and the entire family. That the sight of me made him sick, and he didn’t want to see me—I should get out of his sight. I don’t think my father ever let himself really grieve anything. I think he was afraid that if he did, he’d never stop.
When my father died, in 2020, I posted about it on Facebook. And I wasn’t alone. I could tell everyone I had ever met in one post. My grief was a complicated grief, and it hadn’t helped that my father had been living with Wernocke-Korsakoff syndrome (alcoholic brain damage) for the past ten years, and wasn’t really the person I had once known. But he was still my father, and I was still sad, and writing about it on Facebook, and sharing that complicated grief, was a tremendous gift. So many people reached out, and commented, and left caring and heart emojis, and every single one of them was a reminder that my sadness wasn’t something isolating. It was something we all shared.
And so while it’s strange that my generation (but not quite exclusively my generation) will get to experience this unforeseen aspect of social media, it’s also a strange comfort. We’ll see a post, or make a post, and we can immediately react, and comment, and reach out. We can share our grief and our joys and our memories. And have people respond, right then, with the words that we need to hear. I’m so sorry. I’m thinking of you. Sending love.
I don’t think newspaper obituaries are going to end any time soon, and I don’t think they should. There’s something so beautiful and devastating in writing them, and in reading them, and I think it’s importance to announce death with memories of life. But I do appreciate that we have so many more ways to reach out than ever before. And all the little heart and caring emojis that say hey, I’m thinking of you.
Sending love.