Grief in the time of digital ghosts

Trigger warning: This article contains instances of deep sadness, which may trigger some readers.

On the day of my grandmother’s funeral, I stood in her orchard for nearly four hours. The sun peered through the leaves of her favourite orange trees, warming my cold feet. For years, she had sat next to me on a chair while I picked the fruits from the trees. We had a trade-off—for arduous labour in the garden, I would get a pint of juice made by her and that would be enough.

Now the chair sat idle, waiting to be filled, while I stood in the garden, frozen. My arms felt like jelly every time I tried to move them. After a point, I gave up trying.

They call this feeling ‘shock’–an alien experience that envelops you entirely, leaving you numb all over. What follows is emptiness, precisely known as grief. In more specific terms, it is a strong response to the loss of someone (or some living thing) who has died. Many describe grief as a painful process, one that often follows a series of steps, after which you fully actualise this deep sense of loss.

The first few stages summarise what I felt the day I realised she was gone—denial and anger. Compelled to tell the world about it, and, more importantly, about her, I turned to the notes app on my phone. In a rush of emotions, I strung together two or three sentences that felt like divine justice to her entire life.

I posted this message on Instagram for everyone to see and watched as the ‘like’ count on the post grew steadily. Somewhere deep within me, a sense of belonging and validation sprung up. It woke my senses and shook the shock off my shoulders. It filled me with a quick jolt of adrenaline and, with every comment, that sense of belonging on the internet only grew. Having grown up with the internet, this feeling was all too familiar—more the likes, the better its outcome, or so I thought.

The minute this feeling took over, it became all-consuming. I immediately took down the post and pretended like nothing had ever happened. It angered many, including my father, who saw it as a fitting tribute. But, in reality, it did nothing to satiate the emptiness that remained in me.

We’ve all become accustomed to social media and the validation it brings with it. In my story, it took away from the process of remembering someone close to me, from capturing the essence of her memory in a way that was meaningful and not fleeting.

I wouldn’t be lying if I said that it still hurts every time I open my phone and see her contact details there. It’s even more painful when I dial the number that once belonged to her only to be greeted with, “This caller is not available” and when messages to her on WhatsApp remain unsent.

On occasion, I find myself replaying the last couple of voice notes she had sent to me on WhatsApp or looking at some of her most recent pictures in a desperate attempt to reattach her presence in my life and tell myself that she was still around.

This is the kind of effect social media can have when you’re grieving. It can play tricks on you—the longer you linger around, the stronger is the feeling of denial, with each passing moment.

Social media serves as a poignant reminder of the person whom we’ve lost and the memories associated with them. The person’s digital ghost continues to impact us deeply in more ways than we can imagine. It is an endless, permanent reminder of their social media presence, which was once thriving but is now absent.

There is a flipside to it too, as I came to learn. It brought me closer to the family members who lived far away, across oceans. My brother, whom I had not spoken to for months, sent me a quick message reassuring me that everything would be alright.

Our family groups were flooded with old black-and-white images of my grandmother in her prime, sweetened with pleasant memories of her presence. This family, that regularly sat together to play cards over the odd brandy, was brought together by social media, as they shared messages of comfort across time zones.

Some platforms harness the power of this collective grieving. For instance, Facebook allows you to place an emergency contact who can take over your account long after you’re gone and convert their digital presence into a library of memories.

In a digital footprint universe, the stages of grief are both written and unwritten. Even today, I hesitate to purge my call logs and social media feeds of my grandmother, but a day will come when there will be no new photos or videos to look at.

For now, I take heart from the fact that social media has immortalised her spirit in a way only it can, and this wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the digital age. Her remarkable soul and love will live on forever.

I think this fifty-rupee Hallmark card puts it best, “Little by little we let go of loss but not of love.”

Disclaimer: There are various ways to cope with grief. You can talk to a friend or a family member. However, in case of complicated grief, you may have to seek professional help.