Grieving My Mother In The Digital Age

Written by Adryan Corcione, originally published on Femsplain.

In this digital era, behind our screens, we’re members of tight-knit communities. We’re on major social networks, niche forums, feminist safe spaces, etc. We’re connected to people we relate to from all over the world. Our fingers race to share our most recent accomplishment, or what we’re eating for lunch. Many of us have an established Internet presence on multiple platforms. Likewise, the Internet follows our lives wherever we bring our laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Two months ago, I lost my mother to a sudden death. Over the summer, we parted ways when we both moved across the country, in different directions. We last saw each other in person on the train tracks at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia last June. She left for Florida. Shortly after, I moved to Nebraska. Although we regularly talked on the phone, we heavily relied on the Internet to keep us connected. Despite the distance, we kept in touch.

While this very connection was once the most comforting to me, it’s now the most difficult. My mother’s lingering online presence is the most painful part of accepting her passing. Behind a screen, I can still feel close to her. I scroll through her Facebook photos. I skim through her entire timeline from most recent to oldest posts. I find statuses accompanied by photos from my childhood. I browse through her tweets of Plexus ads. I Google her name. I replay her voicemails. I re-read her texts, emails and anything else she ever sent to me. I browse through her Pinterest board (“Adryan food”) of recipes she cooked to cater to my plant-based diet. I hang onto her last life: her Internet one.

Before the Internet, we remembered loved ones with photographs and their possessions. My parents grieved my grandparents this way. Although my father’s mother passed away before I was born, I slept with her pillow for 20 years and still keep her photograph on my dresser. However, the digital age brings a new component to the grieving process. The Internet offers more than what photographs and personal belongings do.

These online presences can last forever. When we share our lives online, it possesses a type of permanence beyond an epitaph. Even though our lives grow obsolete, we can live forever online. The Internet brings our lives to life, even when we may not be. Online, my mother still lives.

I certainly didn’t think about dying when I signed up for Facebook. I’m sure my mother didn’t, either. I never thought I’d have to decide to memorialize my mother’s Facebook profile or delete it entirely. There aren’t instructions for this. No one tells you how to grieve in the digital era. There are books, groups and everything you could imagine about the grieving process. However, there’s a lack of resources available about grieving in the digital era, where the Internet connects us with our loved ones.

I constantly ask myself: Am I safely scrolling through my mother’s photos or excessively binging? Is this healthy? Am I invading my mother’s privacy? What would she want? What’s the line between remembrance and obsession?

I still haven’t decided what I’ll do with my mother’s presence. I haven’t made a decision on whether to close her accounts or not. In the meantime, I created a Facebook group to memorialize her. I invited our close friends and family to share positive memories and photos of when she was young. For now, this works well.

I don’t have advice to offer anyone that’s in a similar situation. However, as we grow older and technology advances, grief needs to be discussed. How will millennials grieve their parents, friends and other loved ones as leave us one by one? If I were to pass away suddenly today, someone would face a similar dilemma. Not to mention the fact that I have a more diverse online presence compared to my mother. For those with strong online presences today, Facebook is the bare minimum; we’re active on Twitter, Instagram, Poshmark, Tumblr, Reddit, 4chan and many more. While these accounts can last forever, our lives do not. Soon enough, we’ll all face the grieving process in the digital era.