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Comment by ge96 | Hacker News Reader

I was working with a partner in our company closely for a long time. To the point of being friends/talking on the phone a lot. So his face/data is really integrated into our app/marketing. Couple days ago he died and it's so weird... my unanswered text asking why he's not at our weekly meeting/if he's alright. And every time I see his face in our database/marketing material it's so odd like this guy was alive a couple days ago now gone.

My nephew in law/brother (we're roughly same age, grow up together as kids) killed himself one night (self inflicted gunshot). Again so weird, I was talking to him on snapchat, no indication of anything being wrong. Never told me he was having problems.

Anwyay it's weird when someone is suddenly just gone. Not sure if I should digitally purge them from my sights to not be reminded of them or what.

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People always say “no indication of anything being wrong.” Of course. Those who actually intend to commit suicide, hide their idea, otherwise someone may make them backtrack. By that, I mean, it’s not your fault.

I would say yes, you need to remove their photos from most places. The happiest people live in the present. The brain rehearses negative thoughts because it tries to understand how it could have done better, but you have to repeat yourself that you had no control over others’ lives and let go of the continuous thoughts.

Maybe not "purge," but it might be helpful for awhile to put the pictures somewhere they won't sneak up on you and surprise you.

Keep them somewhere you can look at them when you want to, but it's OK to take action not to have to have your guard up against waves of grief that could surprise you at any moment.

Random things will surprise you anyway. It's not foolproof. But minimizing your surprise surface can be helpful for awhile.

I have a related issue with my address book and calendar. I have always been diligent about putting birthdates in my address book. iOS/macOS does the right thing and shows me the birthday on the calendar. Every day, one of my favorite activities is to look at my calendar and think about birthdays for the day or the coming days and send greetings.

I am 50. I have experienced a normal, I think, number of deaths among friends and family. At least once a month I will be reminded of a birthday for someone who has passed away. I am not always happy to be reminded at that moment. I don't think there is a straightforward way for me to tell the address book that this person is no longer alive. I also don't want to remove that data from the person's entry.

As we get more of these digital agents in our lives, they will have to be designed with a little more thoughtfulness.

Yeah with Android messages it pulled up the text convo "follow up?"

I have to nest the images and put them so they don't show in the folder preview.

It is interesting the fallout when you suddenly disappear. All your accounts/things you used to manage.

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