Sharing

On Wednesday I posted the photo of my sister on Facebook along with an Emily Dickinson quote about immortality and love. Within moments, I felt the urge to delete it, but already "likes" and comments were coming in, and I had officially become one of Facebook's public mourners.

My husband's cousin KC messaged me: "You okay? That picture of your sister..."

I explained that she's been gone more than a decade, but I'd been thinking about her on her birthday, and now I felt ashamed to have put my grief on display. Facebook, no less.

Let me backtrack here. I first joined Facebook in 2007 to look in on my daughter and former students. It revealed nothing to me about my daughter other than the fact that my daughter doesn't reveal herself on Facebook, but it has proven to be a pleasant way of keeping up with the adventures of the young adults who once sat in my sixth grade classroom. It's also rekindled contact with a host of people from long ago, a friending usually followed by a fascinating flurry of reminiscences and updates and then, well...at least you know where they are if you want to be in touch.

And I think Facebook-bashing is lame. If you hate it, don't use it, and if you choose to participate, simply do so with a healthy degree of humor, skepticism, and restraint. As long as you're selective about what you put out there, it's generally a benign form of sharing and an easy way of maintaining superficial contact with people (especially those not in your "real" life) and seeing what they're up to, or at least as they hope to be perceived. There's a pretty substantial archive of me out there too: I've posted scores of photos, birthday wishes, all sorts of links and friendly banter.

But I've harbored some ambivalence too. In particular, I try to avoid certain kinds of statuses. These include cringeworthy personal details best shared with one's therapist, and the excruciatingly mundane-- had lunch with my sister-in-law followed by a pedicure and then picked up the dry cleaning--that sort of stuff. And then there are the messages to loved ones in heaven, the parading of pain, the whole public mourning thing. It's like your own self-pity isn't enough; you want some sympathy from others and you'll expose your sorrow right here if it garners some. It seems to cheapen something private and profound.

Or so I thought. But now I'm doing some rethinking...especially since I've indulged in it myself, even beyond my own blog, which I've always thought of as a more personalized and intimate format, and that's somewhat absurd, considering it's online. Facebook, however, is a step removed, another realm, and I felt cheesy.

But I like the way KC responded: "Public bereavement or sharing of life events is one of the lovely things about Facebook. The less we actually see and speak to people, the more we need to connect, even if only on a virtual level."

She has a point. People need communal spaces and avenues for contact, and with networks so diffuse, where else can we gather? There's a lot of boasting and self-promotion, griping and celebration, but Facebook also offers a space for the sharing of grief, and access to whatever small balm comes of its being witnessed. It's a setting for the memorialization of a beloved one's name and image, and I must admit there was something vaguely comforting about seeing my sister's picture on my Facebook page and newsfeed, and knowing others, too, will view it and see who she was, and that she was. So it made her current, in a way. She has a presence out there.

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I've read a few essays about how Facebook serves this function. Here is one of the best such articles, I think, on the topic of online mourning.