grief and the internet

WHY DO I SHARE MY GRIEF – a new blog by Mark Oborn

We recently found this blog by Mark Oborn – below is our letter to him
 
 
 

 Coping after the death of my wife & loved one

 

Dear Mark

First off, I’m so sorry about the sudden death of your sweetheart – I do know something of the pain and confusion, the despair and deep anguish you are going through, so I want to send you my own feelings of compassion and love at this time. I haven’t read much of your blog yet but the fact that you are sharing stuff so soon after Claire’s death is, I believe, not just a brave thing but a healing thing too and the hopefully the best way forward. As you say, being public about your grief helps you to feel normal, that you are not alone and from that we can all take huge amounts of comfort.

Our son Joshua died in early 2011 and I too immediately started to write and muse about how my interests in photography could help see me through. I didn’t publish anything at first, but then we started our own website to honour and remember Josh – www.beyondgoodbye.co.uk – and that has led us to get involved with a number of charities dedicated to helping people through grief, and try and get a bit more acceptance in what people describe as our ‘death averse culture’. Have to say it has not been easy, but then it was not really a conscious decision to go ‘public’ with our grief – it just happened cos that’s what we do and we wanted to able able to stay in touch as much as possible with all Josh’s friends – and where better than on-line. The difficult bit has been the way many of our close friends (in the ‘real’ world) seemed to have been scared off but our continual mention of Josh and the public things we have done for him since he died – grief is traditionally seen as a private matter – it does afterall get in the way of life’s day to day business of earning a living, cleaning the car, watching footer, having sex and generally being happy and productive. Or does it? Possibly, but only if you see grief as something in which we shut ourselves away in a darkened room so that we can be miserable all the time. Which of course it is not.  And that said, two and a half years after Josh died and all those difficult feelings that we and our friends have experienced have now begun to ‘normalise’, I think that by not hiding away (although I still do that a lot of the time) we have been able to face fears (for many the worst fear they could imagine – the death of their own child) by sharing them and in doing so all our lives are enriched – at least I hope so.

So thank you for sharing your grief – its not a shameful thing and these days I believe its not such a difficult thing – the internet has given us such great opportunities in this regard – you have made us feel a bit more normal and I hope you feel the same.

with best regards

Jimmy

August 2013

 

read Mark’s blog here         Coping after the death of my wife & loved one

MORE TO DEATH a new “e-zine”


Our story, our website, our Josh have been featured in a new on line magazine ‘More to Death’.

The first issue is published this month and is free to download.  In fact its an extremely easy and accessible read – just click on this link and your there.  Lots of interesting stuff but our article “Grief and the Internet” is on pages 34 to 39.

An extract …

“People don’t really die on line”.   It’s three months after the funeral and Jessica, a long standing friend of our son Joshua, has come to see us.   Although close playmates through out their childhood, they had grown apart since we moved away from London, their friendship still strong but mainly exchanged via Facebook.   They probably hadn’t seen each other in the flesh for over a year when Josh was killed in a road accident whilst travelling in SE Asia.  He was 22.  Now we are standing by Josh’s tree, a young copper beech, planted in his memory and for which Jessica had performed a song she had specially composed for the occasion and which talks of her sadness of not making more of an effort to stay in touch.  We share her regrets but in her remark we also realise that in some ways, life after death on the internet is not that much different from life before. Josh’s Facebook page for instance is still very active; although he can no longer contribute, his on-line identity is still such that messages to him and postings on his ‘wall’ are an almost everyday occurrence. …..

Read More to Death