Facebook Memorial Pages?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I recently had to do a deep dive into my Friends section on Facebook. I’ve had FB since 2006 with rare, intermittent usage through the years until now. I am still trying to figure out how to respond to people let alone actually post certain kinds of things. But it’s improving.

Anyways, I noticed that I had an unusually large number of deceased friends in my list so I thought I would set about cleaning everything up.

One in particular stood out. It was a person that I had worked with on some difficult social work cases many years ago. He had also been my son’s therapist for a few years. He was prominent in the community and well loved. Kind of a cross between Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams.

He moved to Hawaii in the early 2000s and I spoke to him by phone in 2008 after my son died but have not kept up with him at all.

I went on his FB page and noticed there were no actual posts but a series of annual birthday greetings each year until about 2021.

In 2021 I looked a little closer and discovered several Happy Heavenly Birthdays. I had never seen this before on FB and was surprised.

I did additional research and found out he had died 4 years ago.

When my son died in 2008 I had to move heaven and a bit of hell to get them to take down his My Space page. I even sent them a hard copy of the death certificate.

Is this something current where people leave up FB pages after someone dies?

I just felt … bewildered. But I am curious if this is a new custom that I am not aware of.

And then … What do I do with this grief I am asking myself?

It’s like I swallowed a bag of sad and it just won’t digest.

I am certainly not going to post on FB - that just doesn’t seem right. I think I can figure something out once my mind settles down from zoom and doom mode.

I am simply curious about the memorial pages and people’s responses. I only started using FB very recently (intermittently at best) so I have no precedent.

Sorry for the choppy/disjointed writing. I am not having a good day today and thought maybe this FB discovery was a small part of my somber, quiet almost depressed mood. I am usually the life of the party - always laughing, discussing, etc.

Today I am 100 degrees in the basement and struggling to see light so I can get on with living.

There are probably a number of other reasons I can think of - all in combination have just left me noodled.

I am on the last day of a 10 day prednisone taper. Maybe it has wiped me out physically?

I can’t sleep much at all while I am on it.
So - limited sleep - check.

I have been doing my own end of life planning and finally got all the necessary paperwork to set up an appointment with the funeral home.

Maybe that’s it lol.

2

When my sister died in 2019, her kids tried like hell to get FB to take down her page. They still haven’t succeeded.

I believe FB now allows you to name a designated death reporter who has the power to tell them you’re dead and close your account. At least that’s what I hoped for when I designated my son to be the one, but we won’t know if it works until I die.

3

Thank you for that information. I had hoped things improved since the difficulties I encountered getting my son’s My Space page taken down. I will look into the designated death reporter protocol.

4

According to Facebook, all you need to remove or memorialize an account is a death certificate. No designated reporter needed.

5

I quit using Facebook a few years ago, but I remember a friend who passed away in the early 2010s already had a memorial page that her family would frequently use and her friends would post on for her birthdays. So it’s not an entirely new feature, though the process may have changed.

For what it’s worth, those memorials were some of the rare times I saw people actually just being kind and loving and humane towards each other on Facebook. Friends were still sharing stories and photos years later.

Sorry about your rough day / week.

6

I left my husband’s Facebook page up and return there on his birthday and death days. And sometimes in between. I find it comforting, as do a few of his friends.

It doesn’t appeal to everyone, of course. If you’d rather not then make arrangements to have your own taken down after your demise and don’t visit memorial pages.

7

My late wife had a little-used FB page. I don’t use FB and don’t / won’t have an account.

Memorial pages are common enough. Some folks like them, some are weirded out by them.

When she died I knew about FB’s process to get the page marked as deceased internally and relabeled a memorial page. It proved to be difficult. The main obstacle being only someone with a FB account could submit the death cert. And I wasn’t going to give Zuck a single click, much less create an account on his evil service.

Instead I logged onto her page as her, turned off all her notifications, wrote a short death notice and posted it for whatever old distant friends might see it, and logged off. I haven’t been back and don’t intend to.

The OP and curious others might find this short article from 2013 interesting: Facebook of the Dead.

8

This could absolutely be comforting. I am all for doing whatever helps people grieve and keep memories alive.

I just had no idea it was even a custom so it caught me by surprise.

Discovering someone’s death this way was a bit of a gut punch but then it’s not like we were close for many years. So much time has passed that it feels disrespectful for me to post anything on FB so I will just do a little mental memorial and let it be.

It seems that my Find a Grave page is also discombobulated and I have to inquire about fixing those connections.

I had no clue that my end of life planning would include such meticulous attention to online details. :scream:

9

Interesting article on FB and death.

Thank you.

I do like your idea of turning off notifications and writing a short death notice.

Back in 2008 I had such a frustrating experience with MySpace closing my son’s page.
I don’t want my cousins (who are my executors) to have to deal with this so I guess I need to add FB decisions to my list of things to sort out.

10

I have a facebook account but hardly ever visit it, let alone post any new topics.
I think their UI is horrible…

They grew to where they are by relentless chasing of new subscribers, so I’m not surprised that they make it very hard to take down or unsubscribe.

11

It may have been at one point, but it’s pretty simple to do now.