Thank You Facebook

People use Facebook for all kinds of reasons and recently I found myself using Facebook in a way I never thought I would.

My grandfather battled cancer for over two years and last Tuesday, he lost the battle. I was devastated as he was more of a best friend to me than anything else. I would always call him on my way home from work to talk about our day. He would tell me about his and I would share with him how my day went.

I’m horrible at dealing with death and was having a terrible time expressing how I felt about losing him. I didn’t want to talk to family or friends and had pretty much shut down.

I’m not exactly sure when I made the status update, but it said “R.I.P. Grandpa, you were my hero, a father to me, a mentor to me, but most importantly, you were my best friend. I’ll see you on the other side but until then I want you to know how much I love you and there will not be a day that goes by that you will not be in my thoughts…” Within a minute of me making the post, I started receiving comments from my friends. I cannot even begin to explain to you how important those comments were to me. I needed to hear them even though I didn’t want to talk to anybody on the phone.

The next thing I did was replace my profile picture with one of my grandfather. I needed to honor him and by showing all of my friends his picture, it helped me accomplish this. I wanted everybody to see the man that I had loved so dearly.

For the next few days my status updates included a poem about death to me sharing with my friends that my son had decided to dedicate his football game to his great-grandfather who had just passed. My friends continued sending me messages and comments helping me through this difficult time. It was last Friday that I decided to make one final post about my Grandfather. I needed my friends to know I was okay and as a result I made a status update that read “Coming out of the darkness tonight…time to party friends!!!” And that’s exactly what I did – I celebrated his life with a bottle of Captain Morgan and friends.

There are no words to thank you Facebook; you helped me through one of my darkest times. You gave me a way to grieve my loss and to express how I was feeling. You also gave my friends a way to reach out to me when I didn’t want to talk to anybody. You made all the difference Facebook and all I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart…