Facebook still reminds me when it is her birthday (although I never forget anyway) and in a way I find it quite comforting to have an external reminder of her. It makes me feel while she has gone she is still here in some strange little ways. Nobody truly dies on the internet.
I would also like to say thank you to all those who have said such kind things in your replies.
[0] I hate that expression but it seems to be the only way to phrase it
Before human beings developed external memories (photographs and now digital records of everything we do), trauma and negative memories were supposed to slowly fade away, and they did. Only mildly emotional residues remained. Our psychological itch to keep experiencing sights and sounds associated with a thing or person lost could not be scratched no matter how tempted we were.
Now we can. Not only that, we consider it some sort of obligation to carry the burden. We scratch the wound just as it starts to heal and it's like experiencing the loss over and over again.
or may be that's just my experience. I used to be in a permanent state of melancholy because I always reminisced about past losses, even when the present was good. I don't do that anymore. I've a rule, in fact: never replay a negative experience more than once unless you have new data to re-evaluate it in a different light.
Remembering good things (and apparently the past tends to be seen in positive light, regardless of whether we felt happy at the moment) causes the mismatch between our memories and the reality. Possibly because we're very social species, a deceased person causes the worst pain.
It is a bitter sweet moment indeed. Im kind of glad i got the notification really.
Birthday notifications were sad, but the reconnect business drove me up a wall. I would pay anything if I could to reconnect with him now, but they don't know that.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/facebook-ads-showin...
In general, the bereaved don't need platitudes which cheapen their loss or try to fast-forward them through the grieving process. Don't presume to know what the deceased _or_ the bereaved feel or _should_ feel, and don't assume they share/d your beliefs.
Instead of 'comfort and a kind word', try 'comfort' until you are asked for more. Be present for those who are grieving. Offer to help in any way you can if you can, and help when called upon.
Just listening is profoundly useful. Often, they're not really listening to you anyway.
To me, in grief, platitudes and comforting words seem like a useless distraction and annoyance, but I wouldn't then go on to suggest your way of being around the grieving is what everybody needs to be doing. He was being nice and wasn't hurting anybody doing it, and there isn't such a dearth of those posts that we need to attack them.
Keep it to yourself.
By the way, her words were something along to lines of "He's with God now, and that's the best thing in the world."