Me either. I have probably a half-dozen friends on Facebook who’ve passed away IRL, and their pages become a kind of virtual place to leave flowers on their birthdays, with numerous old friends sharing reminiscences.
As far as phone contacts, I’m far less sentimental. I delete co-workers from former jobs all the time, and really anyone I haven’t contacted in over a year.
I delete my old contacts when I notice they are still around. Some a few days later, others a few weeks. I think of it as an opportunity to salute their passing and reflect on their contribution to my life.
I make it a tiny ritual, so it feels right :o
Ditto. My late fiancé is also on my Facebook friends list and he’s been gone since 2011. I can’t just delete him. I also cant delete my friend from high school who died unexpectedly last year. That’s so final.
My best friend died suddenly about a month ago. (Well, suddenly to me, she knew she had cancer, she just failed to tell me) Her daughter cancelled her FaceBook account, but every game I play there brings her picture up every time. It just breaks my heart. I’ve written to FB and the game admins.
One game admin (from Russia, I think) said, sorry about your friend, but you grief is not our problem.
I deleted her from my phone and address list, but I just don’t have the heart to “unfriend” her on FB. She will always be my friend. I just can’t afford the roaming charges to call her where ever she is now.
I think “final” is the word that best explains why I haven’t deleted these friends from my phone/email contacts.
It’s not as if I’m still grieving or anything. I’m not, I did for a bit and then moved on. But although I get a wee pang of sadness when I’m faced with the reminder (I also have some books given to me by one deceased friend, a necklace from another), it seems it would be…unecessary and, yes, final, to delete them.
People that for one reason or another I haven’t communicated with in a long time, I have no problem deleting.
My Dad is still in my email address book, and the cell phone.
Tomorrow is 9 years since he died.
I think this is a nice approach. I have been maintaining and importing my lists electronically that I have a fairly generous number of deceased contacts. It’s not hurting anyone or anything to keep their information, but I do think an addition would differentiate them from the assorted vendors and cub scout parents and folks I no longer contact.
I damaged my last cell phone without cloud backup set up correctly. As a result I lost a long string of saved text exchanges with my mom, including several from the day she died.
I now have seven dead facebook friends. It’s disarming when they show up over on the right “It’s Ted’s birthday! Tell him Hello.”
I’ve only had it happen once and something odd happened with it:
His name was Johnny, he delivered the bread to out store, he died very suddenly. His replacement’s name was John. I thought it was a bit funny to just reuse the same contact, so I edited the phone number and changed Johnny to John. ha ha I thought, a little bit or morbid humor.
A few months later I had a new phone and had to call John. I scrolled down to his number and clicked on it, after a few rings I got Johnny’s voicemail. Must’ve been a glitch when the numbers transferred over. I’m glad his widow/wife/kid didn’t pick up. “Is John there?” is likely a question they were not only sick of here but a few months later were just started to not hear anymore.
When my grandmother died (I didn’t have her number in my phone), my dad said he deleted her number within minutes knowing if he didn’t do it then he wouldn’t be able to do it. That was about 10 years ago, my aunt probably still has it in her phone.
There was some (probably one panel) comic that I got this from, but from time to time I like to toss out the random comment “I go through the obituaries and cross all the names out of the phone book.”
Hope tomorrow isn’t too hard for you. hugs