But death A.F. or After Facebook, adds one more decision to the grieving process.
To unfriend or not to unfriend?
For a long time after their deaths, I kept my close ones in the roster of Facebook friends. I thought it would be a betrayal to unfriend them. I wanted to be with them forever in spirit online with their other friends, a collective community that keeps the eternal digital flame burning.
But then I came to the conclusion that hanging on wasn’t helping me and didn’t matter to them. So, last year, I decided to make room for the living by unfriending some of the deceased who were close to me and to start anew in 2016.
Here is who I said goodbye to on Facebook in 2015:
George McGovern — I loved this man, as much as anyone can love a politician, that is. He was the U.S. senator from South Dakota for 18 years between 1962-1980. He ran for president and lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon in 1972, when I was 13. His strong, principled and correct opposition to the Vietnam War was one of his major campaign themes. Then my admiration became personal when my family moved to Mitchell, South Dakota, McGovern’s hometown and where he kept a house on Lake Mitchell. I gave him boat rides on the lake and listened in awe to the encyclopedic wisdom of the former World War II bomber pilot and prairie progressive. I regret not having any photos of those times. We both graduated from Mitchell High School — 38 years apart. Out of the blue, he friended me on Facebook and I happily followed his activities for several years until his death in 2012 at the age of 90.
Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell — My editor for many years at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, she died well before her time after being struck by a car in New Zealand in 2010, at the age of 68. She was trailblazing as a woman in power, but she was also a cussing, old-style editor who knew how to kick ass and take names. She led my newspaper to its first two Pulitzer Prizes and went on to a great career in Washington, D.C. Her legacy is filled with working proteges, including myself, who have adopted some of her management techniques, her passion for news and who remain grateful for her inspiration.
Jim Ragsdale
Jim Ragsdale — He was a much-beloved local journalist in Minnesota. Out of the thousands of great stories he wrote, the one that comes to mind is his interview with the Washington Post’s iconic editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, about his book The Good Life. They both died in 2014, Bradlee at the age of 93 and Ragsdale, too early of cancer, at the age of 64. Thinking about these two great journalists in the same room, talking and full of life, still makes me smile.
Lawrence Nichols
Lawrence Nichols — A college friend from the University of Minnesota, Larry became a lawyer and also died way too soon, at the age of 55, of squamous cell cancer, making him unable to swallow or talk in his last weeks.
Larry Oakes
Larry Oakes — Another college friend and journalism colleague from the University of Minnesota, his boyish face and optimism endeared him to many people. I admired his journalism but also his ability to fix anything, it seemed, unlike me. In 2013, at the age of 52, he succumbed to depression, went up to a hill overlooking his beloved Lake Superior in Duluth, and shot himself fatally.
Facebook policies
Facebook’s policies about what happens to a dead person’s account are in its help section. Verified family members can have the account deleted. Otherwise, if the death is confirmed, Facebook memorializes the count with the words “Remembering” above the person’s name.
At the age of 56, the conveyor belt of life is speeding up with each passing year, as anyone close to my age or older knows very well.
I am not sure the tipping point has been reached yet, but soon many more people close to me will be in the great beyond than in the here and now on earth. While I was not a great fan of theirs, the recent deaths of music legends Glenn Fry and David Bowie — neither of whom made it to age 70 — brought my own mortality into sharper focus.
But friends, after my last post, please remember me fondly but feel free to unfriend me. I will understand.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]
