What the crap do I do with Facebook when my loved one dies
What the crap do I do with Facebook when my loved one dies.
1) Uh Nothing. I did nothing. That's not precisely true, I did all kinds of things, but the important thing I did not do was make sudden decisions. Just leave it. If you have access to your loved ones account, thats awesome, your going to want it. If its automatically on their phone or computer great, leave it there. If you have the password and can log in like I did awesome. Your going to want all that.
2) The real first thing I did was make sure all the important people knew before anything was said ever on Facebook. Family, close friends, Dan's work, and our church all knew before the Facebook world did. Note: uhhhh I was barely functioning, if at all. Of about 30 people we had to tell I made precisely two of those phone calls, other people did the rest. I don't even know what other people, I just know it got done. Furthermore all those people are classy and didn't say anything about it on their own Facebooks until I did.
3) Dan died in the middle of the night. By the next afternoon everyone had been informed. I felt it was time to tell Facebook, plus I didn't want it "leaking" from someone else. I typed up a thing on my phone. two and a half years later and I still remember it word for word "This is Jenny. It is with and excruciatingly sad heart I have to tell you that Dan passed away extremely suddenly and unexpectedly last night". That's all. Details were for later. I handed my phone and Dan's phone to my friend. She copied the post onto Dan's phone and then posted them simultaneously. Know the whole world knew.
4) Since I did have access to Dan's Facebook I posted several times under his name giving details of what happened and posting funeral info. Uggg, yuck I can't believe I was able to do that. Clearly I wasn't thinking. For awhile I posted updates as him (everyone knew it was me, he was dead of course) so his friends could check up on us. Then I just started posting on my page but sharing it to his and tagging him in stuff.
5) DO THIS! DO THIS NOW! I am so glad my friend told me about this feature, I had no clue it existed and it is awesome. Facebook has a app? where you can turn your personal Facebook into an actual physical book. All Dan's posts and picture are in a bound book. I can take it out and look at it whenever I want. Like a photo album. I am telling you it is cool. Again if you have access to your loved ones Facebook you can just get in there and do it. If you don't there is an option for you making it as a gift for your friend, I'm not sure if it's slightly different or not. Depending on how much your loved one was on Facebook they can get kind of spendy. Please listen to this: IT IS WORTH IT! I love Dan's Facebook book. Here is a link for you https://www.facebook.com/mysocialbook/?ref=br_rs
Furthermore it's just awesome to have in general and I made one for my Facebook too.
6) If you have access to their Facebook go in as them and make yourself their "legacy contact" just search legacy contact in the Facebook search and it will direct you how. This will allow you to still manage their page when you memorialize it. If you don't have access you are kind of out of luck. You wanna do this if you can because if the page gets memorialized without your knowledge (which Facebook will do if someone tell them their dead) you will be locked out. Don't worry number 7 is about memorializing.
7) Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait as long as you want. I waited two and a half years to memorialize Dan's page and I'm not sure I was really ready. What does memorializing a page do? Everything and nothing. For me it was a kind of reality check, like finally admitting to the world that he was dead and not coming back (after all if you read it on the internet it must be true) (thats a joke in cause you didn't notice my sarcasm.) Still there was part of me that felt like memorializing his page was one more step to making it real.
Practically speaking (after all this is a practical post) what it does is put something like "Remembering...." in front of their name and fading it out a little bit. You are supposed to still be able to tag them in posts and post stuff to their timeline. If you are that legacy person you can still get at stuff. Since I'm still alive I was able to choose my legacy person in case I up and die. I choose my baby sister. Shes had to pick up a lot of Dan's slack since he died. It's not really fair to her.
What it did that I wish I would have known it was going to do: Yes you can still tag them but I have found it's much much harder. I have to search for his name instead of it just being the first one that pops up when I type in a D. Many times I can't find his name at all on my phone or tablet which is frustrating because seriously who ever uses their actual computer anymore. Second it seems to have taken his pictures out of my memory pop ups. You know the little things that pop up in your feed that say this is what you posted this day two years ago. I was madly in love with Dan, nearly every picture I put on Facebook had him in it. Now he's not and now his face doesn't even come up in my memory posts. Depending on your personality this might be a good thing. I know a lot of people hate those memory posts that surprise you with pictures of your dead loved ones. I however loved them so this bums me out.
Look at me all knowledgeable on Facebook death practices. All I had to do to get this great knowledge was have my husband die. Ya not worth it, but I do hope it can actually help you.
I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle
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