opinions on bereavement.

[dolphin01]

In recent times I have seen lots of status updates along the lines of
..... lost their ...... today

Just interested whether people think this is appropriate.

Don't see why it wouldn't be appropriate, as long as all close friends/family have been informed, obviously! It seems a sensible idea to me, people will be able to give them a bit of space and they won't have to keep explaining what has happened.

eacnh to thier own, I would have probaly put something on FB when my dad died, but mn did it for me.

I would for a cat, not for a person.

I did for my dog. I don't think I would for a person though.

I think it can be a tool for good, friends of mine have just had to go away from our village to their dad's home town as he was dying, we can't all be phoning them all the time so FB has been a good place to get updates and send our love without disturbing them. They might not be here with us but we can let them know we are thinking about them and supporting them when they choose to access their FB account. (I think that makes sense)

MrsGokWan and I didn't want to answer this thread as it was a little close to home but TBH I thought it was important to give the POV of folks who are bereaved.

My mother died 3 weeks ago and I updated my Facebook status soon after as:

a) I couldn't face telling a lot of the people on there by phone (friends and work colleagues) as we had all the family to phone as it was.

b) It informed people why I would be acting differently for a while.

c) I was also able to say "please can we take sympathy as read for the moment" which people respected until I updated my status again. This allowed me to lurk and take my mind off things without having to be reminded or deal with people.

I do wonder why you would think that it wasn't appropriate surely if you care about the friends you have on Facebook then you'd want to know if they are hurting?

I don't think it matters one iota whether I think it's appropriate or not. If the bereaved person finds it appropriate and/or helpful then I would be a pretty lousy human being if I sat there sucking my teeth and thinking "Oooh, I hardly think that's appropriate". If I were that way minded I could fill in my afternoons by going to the crematorium and judging the appropriateness of various floral arrangements, or wander around the local cemetery ranking the gravestones out of 10.