To not get people putting messages on FB to relatives that have been dead for years?

[Wampingwillow]

I just don't get why anyone would want to wish their mother/ father/brother etc a happy birthday on Facebook when they've been dead for 10 years! Obviously they are dead and I would expect that the family and close friends would know that it would have been their birthday so why the need to let everyone else know? Is it just so they can get loads of 'sending you hugz Hun' messages and while we are at it why to people like the status? Do they really like the fact that your relative is dead?

"Oldebaglady, I get it. You don't want to be a part of this. Therefore, you need to let people know how you feel and ask them not to tag you in."

I have repeatedly! particularly when it comes to anniversaries of the actual death - I may remember someone on their birthday or christmas in my own way, but I deliberately choose to forget the exact date of their death! I don't want to remember/mark that! However some people who do get annoyed by this as they want their remembering it to be a group activity, and I am repeatedly reminded every year of certain people's death anniversary even though I have asked not to be!

If people leave me out of it, their posts on deceased people's walls don't show up in my news feed because of my settings! but they don't leave me out of it! THEY want it to be a group thing!

to me it's like if I lived with someone who died and none of their mail was cancelled! every time something was delivered it'd be a reminder that they'd never open it! I feel the same about FB stuff they'll never see IYKWIM

Greensleaves... how about you not telling others to shut up? You have no idea of anybody's background here unless you know them. Why are you posting on a thread that upsets you so much to read? You have a choice.

I think what the OP means, but hasn't said clearly, is the "Happy Birthday" bit. Am I correct OP?

I think the "remembering you" or "thinking of you" etc is different but I actually agree that saying "happy birthday" is a bit strange. Of course they, sadly, cannot have a happy birthday.

Greensleeves, by definition, anyone being tagged/invited to FB RIP groups/posts/statuses has lost someone?? If they hadn't they wouldn't have seen them/been included in them in order to have an opinion on them right?

I was replying to OP and the second post - both of which were insensitive and nasty.

But if jumping down my throat serves a purpose for you, knock yourselves out - I am NOT one of the people who is being hurt by this ridiculous and offensive nonsense

Your post was pretty nasty, Greensleaves.

thank you op for reminding me i hadnt told my father about my exam results yet, despite them having been out for 9 hours already.
FB is the only memoriam I have of him that means anything to me. It celebrates his life in a way that his gravestone never can. flowers cant, and none of the traditional ways of doing things can. If you dont like it, then ignore, just like we have to ignore ninety percent of the crap on the internet

Mum so very sorry about your son.. Please accept hugs however hollow from a stranger..

My dd is coming up to an anniversary of a fatal crash in which she and lots of her friends were badly injured. Her teacher died.

We will be marking the memory if him on Facebook, with flowered in RL and in fund raising. It helps her.

Nasty nasty post.

Saying Happy Birthday isn't strange.

I believe my son and daughter are in heaven, I believe they are together and I believe that they celebrate their birthdays together, although I don't have FB I do wish them 'Happy Birthday' every year and have 'gardens' for them on a memorial website. So yes, they can, imo, have a happy birthday. If I didn't believe that then I don't think I could have carried on.

I have known people to grieve in all different ways, I have known them celebrate their loved ones birthdays, to ignore them, to go out and get steaming drunk, to go on holiday, to sit at their graveside all day, to sit and write on FB, to laugh all day, to cry all day.... who the hell is anyone else to comment, pass judgement, or slag off the way people choose to get one second of feeling slightly less crappy at such a heartbreaking time.

In your defense op, I lost my mum 16 years ago, I was a child and my mum never had Facebook. My siblings all do the happy birthday nun status and I have never understood it. She doesn't have Facebook was my thoughts.

Having read this thread my eyes have been truly opened and I understand better now but your question is one that i have often asked myself.

How about shut the fuck up and delete them from your FB if you are going to be such a twat about it.

It is nothing to do with you. Greif is not suppose to be anything, greif is excatly how you feel it. NO ONE CAN GREIVE WRONGLY. despite what idiots like you think.

MreDeVere,, anyone with any sense totally understands why you do this and of course anyone with any modicum of humanity and understanding totally supports you.

Love and hugs to you and all the bereaved parents on here.

You may not know us but lots of us are thinking of you. Xxx

Eliza - both my friends who lost babies never got a chance to see them open their eyes. They never heard them make a sound. All they have are graves, one has photos and the knowledge they carried them. If they want to wish them a happy birthday - or anything else - it's fine with me. It's ALL they can do. Those of us who have our children in our arms have no place, no place at all, to tell them what they should or should not do.

Lyingwitch - I don't buy the argument that we should just ignore the things that upset us. Why? I believe the OP is wrong. Very wrong. I think that the people who agree with her, who wish to push death and the grief of others away from them are wrong too. If I had ignored this thread then I have in some way let it stand, when I think it's wrong. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

i have posted 'Happy Birthday' type messages to my Dad on FB, he died when I was 18, over 20 years ago now. I have a large family, 5 siblings and various nephews and neices on fb and good friends who knew me (and him), we have shared memories and acknowleged Dad's bday and the anniversary of his death over the last few years. If the few, more recent acquaintances I have friended on fb find this weird they are welcome to hide my updates.

Grief is private, I have sobbed alone in my kitchen plenty, but sharing memories of a person you loved with friends and family who also knew and loved them is a great comfort. Death is not a dirty secret it is part of life, fb is a way of sharing your life so omitting grief because some people find it distasteful? to that

judging the way people grieve is pretty fucking unpleasant tbh.

My parents died a long time ago, 19 and 15 years respectively, when I was in my early 20s. I was an only child. They were my only family (no grandparents). I think of them and miss them every day. I cannot imagine there ever being a time when I won't miss them. I don't talk about them much, it is so long ago only a couple of my current friends even knew them.

I update my status on FB at least once a day on average, with any manner of mundane shit. As such I don't think that twice a year (on their birthdays and the days they died) it's too unreasonable of me to post a status saying I am thinking of them, and that I miss and love them.

Northern, absolutely spot on.

What I find distasteful about this thread most of all is that someone has expressed a view which not everyone agrees with.

The posters on here being downright rude and aggressive to the OP would be the first ones to shout "bully" if they were being spoken to in the manner they have used to attack the OP.

Why don't you try calmly and gracefully to change someone's point of view instead of acting like fishwives and telling people to "f off"

"I think that the people who agree with her, who wish to push death and the grief of others away from them are wrong too."

why? why do I have to embrase someone else's way? why can't I be excluded from group FB grief if that's not my way? and yes I have hidden etc, but why should I delete people I am otherwise close to? surely they should respect that their way is not my way and please leave me out! but no! everyone has to "remember" at the same time in the same way!

Lots of posts saying "no wrong way to grieve"... then saying "you're wrong to not enjoy other people's way" - that is a contradiction!

because essentially all of you who think IABU are saying that my way of grieving is wrong!

That's fair enough, NorthernLurker but the OP isn't actually dictating how anybody does anything or saying how they must grieve. She's saying, unless I've misunderstood, that she doesn't 'get' the 'happy birthday' on facebook and explained why. I read it - thought, well, I don't 'get' it either... but that's not saying that it's 'wrong' to post 'happy birthday' or anything else that they want to post.

For some people though, they have their own griefs over lost loved ones and to see people posting status updates is upsetting. Horses for courses.

Nobody is telling others they must not grieve or how they should be doing it. Where is this being picked up from? I certainly don't feel that I would have a right (or even a wish) to do that so if they're coming from my posts then I've written them very badly.

People used to put birthday memories in local papers for loved ones. I didn't see the point of that I must say. But folk do like to remember the birthdays of loved ones. I always do but only privately. So facebook is just used for that and if it gives them comfort then fair enough.

Eliza I expect 'calm' and 'grace' arnt emotions generally associated with people when you loose a child. Do you?

Are you really calling a grieving mother a 'fishwife'. Shame on you.

I hope you never feel the utter terror of being told by police, like we were, that our dd was critically ill in a foreign country.

If you have no experience of either this or the death if a beloved child then please just shut the fuck up.