On Grief and the Gift of—Go Figure—Facebook

October 6, 2011

 

Now, I realize it’s possible that Mark Zuckerberg did not create Facebook with the primary purpose of easing my personal grief over my dad’s passing.

I’ve seen the movie. I’ve read the articles. I’m willing to believe that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t sit in his Harvard dorm room all those years ago and move directly from nursing a wounded ego to wondering how he could make my life a little less dark in these days after walking with death.

But still, the man—whatever pettiness or disloyalty or greed he’s capable of, just like the rest of us— ended up creating more than the place where teenagers post a bazillion pictures of themselves in that uniquely Facebook-upload-ready pose, shoulders ratcheted unnaturally back and hips thrust toward the camera.

I know, I know. Facebook is a total black hole for time, and can’t be trusted to be glanced at during the work day, unless you want the presentation you’re supposed to give at noon to get sidelined by having caught up with your best friend from third grade, whom you last saw when her mom’s U-Haul pulled out for Des Moines. Facebook is a nuisance, too, with lots of business and artistic types— like, God help us, writers—promoting the fruits of our creative labors to our friends of friends of friends, and flailing about to fall on the warm, I’m-here-for-you side of commercial.

But honestly, though I guess I’ve never known it until now, Mark Zuckerburg has also given a great gift—who knew?— to the grieving.

Community. And connection.

Across the miles and graduations and career changes and relocations.

Across the years of losing touch and moving on.

“Only Connect” is the theme of E.M. Forster’s marvelous novel Howard’s End, and it’s not a bad motto for moving through mourning.

Beneath a grainy, scanned black and white of my dad, comments thread together from the most disconnected points of my life:  back door neighbors from childhood and kids I used to babysit—who’ve had the gall to turn grey at the temples— and colleagues from graduate school and friends from the high school newspaper staff, the youth minister from my teen years and the parents of my own children’s friends ….

They show up on my page with their little thumbnail profile pic smiles, some of them with arms around their spouses or kids, a few of them with arms around the parents that they themselves have just recently lost. They come with their offers of a favorite memory of my dad or their own, with wishes of comfort and God’s grace and peace. They tell their own stories of mourning, and of remembering well.

Their names and their words weave across and down and through, and the web of their kindness and time—such a gift in just a handful of lines— catches me this day from falling.

So, Mark Zuckerberg, from those of us who’ve ever mourned and have been startled to find comfort and solace in—go figure—the gifts of a blue and white page and a one-letter logo, I’d just like to say this:

Be a good boy and go back and give your co-founders their due if they’re due it, but also… hey, thanks. From the on-line grieving and grateful.

 

 

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Posted by Joy Jordan-Lake | Filed Under On Grief, Writing in the Midst of Real Life 

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