Grieving, among many others things, has come to the Open Group At Bedlam Farm. The OGBF is a wonderful creative success, I couldn’t be happier with it or prouder of it, but from the first, I was concerned that the site would be dominated by grieving – either for people or animals. This seems to occur on sites related to animals but also anywhere people gather online. Grieving has gone public on the Internet and on social media, something that used to be among the most private, even hidden of feelings and emotions has become very public and commonplace. For better or worse, social media has broken down historic and once natural boundaries of emotion. I use social media, and appreciate it, I also struggle constantly to create and maintain boundaries in this new world, to ask people on Facebook and elsewhere to treat me and others the same way they would if they were in my home. Most do, some don’t.

It is not possible, really, to even be on Facebook and be a private person, it is incompatible with the very idea of social media. It is also not feasible

On the Open Group, which currently has nearly 600 members, it has become quite common for people to mourn their lost pets and more recently, the people in their lives. Many of the OFBF members have become good and valued friends, so it seems – is – natural for them to share the loss of loved ones and loved things, to grieve openly.

When this grieving is posted on the site, there are almost instantly scores of messages, the overwhelming number of which say “sorry for your loss.” In fact “sorry for your loss” is by far the most frequent comment on a very diverse site which covers all kinds of creative subjects – blogs, photos, family, painting, wildlife, glass work, sketching. There is an almost  choreographed quality to these posts and these replies, as if everyone has a button that I don’t have on my computer.  I have mixed feelings about it, it seems both perfectly natural yet somehow rote and ritualistic to me. And, if it grows and grows, threatening.

It’s a cycle, I am thinking of my brother, my mother, my best friend, my dog, sorry for your loss, sorry for your loss. I’m not sure what the phrase means precisely, or how much comfort it provides (it seems to provide at least some, according to the comments that I read.)

Where does grieving belong now? In the home, online, on Facebook, in Church, with friends and family?  On The Open Group? These are not strangers, they know one another quite well, it is not unnatural to try and comfort a friend, even a digital one. That’s the whole idea behind Facebook, make connections. Yet I think a lot about my work as a hospice volunteer, how much training went into the notion that there is almost nothing one can really say when someone is grieving. Volunteers are trained to be active listeners. In hospice you learn not to tell people it will get better, how sorry you are, how much you relate to the experience because none of those things are generally true. In hospice, very few people are seeking sympathy, they are either beyond that or ahead of it.

Sometimes I said “I’m sorry, can I help.” Most of the time I say nothing. I am using this valuable lesson in my therapy work with Red and veterans, especially those recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They don’t want me to thank them, tell them I’m sorry, suggest that I understand. I don’t. I have no idea what they have been through, they do not wish to be thanked or sympathized with or patronized in any way. The are in a world I am not a part of. One of the stages of grief is anger, and most people who have lost something dear are resentful of the way the world tries to talk to them about it.

Human grieving is different. I wince sometimes when I see that “sorry for your loss” is the most frequent message now posted on the OGBF. It makes me uncomfortable, yet I think it is part of a natural, human organic part of the new digital community. I asked the members recently to explore this, and they are talking about it. What, exactly, are people looking for when they tell us about their mothers, fathers, brothers and friends who are gone? Awareness? Sympathy? Support? And what precisely does it mean when most of the people responding say “sorry for your loss” without any amplification or other thought?

I share much of my life online, I have for years, that is the story of this blog, and there are significant parts of my life I don’t share. I don’t generally post messages about friends or family members becoming ill or dying, unless there is a larger message for people, it seems a private thing to me. And I don’t feel at ease when people I don’t know offer me sympathy, I’m not sure what it means or how to weigh it. I also have developed different ideas about grieving. I am puzzled when people post messages – this happens very frequently online – mourning pets that have died months or years ago. I’m surprised when people share their pain but not their happiness, their mourning but not their good memories. I do not mourn the dogs and animals I have lost, I cherish the ones that are here with me now.

Is sympathy, then,  the point of messages about grief? Or have expressions of grief simply become part of the currency of social media, the people and animal sites are awash in grief and need. Emotions once private have become so public that we offer rote responses – “so sorry for your loss” – as if they were stamps or automatic replies. I sometimes wonder if some keyboard shave “so sorry for your loss” buttons, there are so many of those messages. Sometimes I think of the Internet as a giant urn, one so big and evolving that we can put all of our fears, sadness, anger and grief into it, it will happily absorb whatever we offer.

Grieving is a bottomless experience. There is no one reading this who has not lost beloved pets, parents, friends, neighbors, co-workers, even children. In one way or another, we are all dealing with loss and grief or we will soon enough. We will all get sick and die, we will all be somebody’s loss.  I wonder if every online group will fill up with sadness and loss, and who, I wonder, wants to read about other people’s loss and grief every day of their lives?

These are questions, I don’t have many answers, I’m not sure there are any,  just feelings and emotions of my own. And I’m putting them out on my blog, and yes, on Facebook too. Somehow, I think the answers will shape these new kinds of communities and the emotional lives of the people who inhabit them.