Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155617891025177&set=a.404308695176.365039.717545176&type=1&theater

by dknecht • 11 years ago

518 193 11 years ago

joegaudet• 11 years ago

Really great read, I recently lost a friend who was among many other great things Jewish. As a "Gentile" I found the entire Shiva process both historically / anthropologically interesting and very helpful with the mourning process.

My thoughts go out to her and her family.

GuiA• 11 years ago

Paul Buchheit wrote a wonderful post, after similar circumstances, that I often re-read:

On a more practical level, what matters most in our day-to-day lives is that we're good to ourselves and to each other. It's actually not possible to only do one or the other -- we must do both or neither, but that's a topic for another time. Sometimes, when I write about startups or other interests of mine, I worry that perhaps I'm communicating the wrong priorities. Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all just a game. What's most important is that we are good too each other, and ourselves. If we "win", but have failed to do that, then we have lost. Winning is nothing.

http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-today.h...

May Sheryl and her family be free of suffering.

misiti3780• 11 years ago

I have read that post multiple times also - it really puts things into perspective

AndrewKemendo8• 11 years ago

Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all just a game.

I feel like this sentiment is very common, but is implicitly stating that all of the other things, family, friends, personal health etc... are not games - when I don't see why that would be the case. Nothing distinguishes those things for me.

Creating new products, like software that gives people better productivity, or hardware that helps people achieve physical fitness goals, or systems that make getting clean water cheaper - those are life changing to a lot of people, sometimes even millions. The typical response to this is "yea but most people make junk" to which I say, telling junk from non-junk is an exercise in futility.

We wouldn't be quoting Paul Buchheit or talking about Dave Sandberg if they hadn't sacrificed some of those relationships, or health for the products and platforms that we know them for. And that's the real point - legacy. Someone's legacy is not the relationships they had personally, just look at the miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing their vision and impact on groups outside of their circle.

Winning in my opinion then, is having an (hopefully positive) impact on those outside of your inner circle, not within it. And the larger the impact, the bigger the win.

iamcurious• 11 years ago

I used to think that. Then I realized that the one reason to think that legacy is important, is that losts of very influential people, the kind that leave a legacy, seem to think so. By that lens, legacy is nothing but a virus that uses your resources to replicate.

Currently, I aim to love as much as I can and to have some fun! Any other aim, just seems like a great way to fret.

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

Spoken like somebody without kids. They trigger responses built into our brains that make family very much more important that all the rest. Thus, family isn't a game any more.

kraig9112• 11 years ago

I too used to think this way. I can't explain it now that I have a child and family and have lost people very close to me. Where as before the mere thought of innovating I felt like I was some of the first people ever to be doing something where in now I find it was all just a race. I.E. - Someone else could've finished that super fancy product and made lots of money. Just today I missed my daughter swimming for the first time and no amount of money or technology can fix that.

I agree with you about the hopeful positive impact. Impact is hard to quantitively measure though so much as love is hard to measure. You only know how much you are loved by surrounding yourself with people who love you and sharing your love for them I guess. I never realized how alone I was until I had an inner circle to miss.

ivanhoe• 11 years ago

but would you really rather be remembered as a successful businessman by some strangers on Internet or as a loving human being by your own family? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just it's not the same level of emotion... not even close

aaronbrethorst2• 11 years ago

What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret?

Will it be that you didn't spend as much time as you could've with your parents before they died? How about with your siblings? Maybe it was all of the times that you didn't make it to your kids' soccer games, piano recitals, school plays, or graduations?

Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media startup's bugs?

I don't remember the exact genesis of this, and I really wish I did, because it has literally reshaped my life, but a few years ago, I started asking myself the question 'If I were to die tomorrow, would I regret the way I have lived my life?' And I was somewhat surprised and horrified to discover that the answer was absolutely, categorically "yes."

I dropped out of the startup rat-race, took a good-paying 9-5 job working with people who I (still) really like, and started focusing on the other 128 hours in the week that I wasn't working.

I would hate to die tomorrow, but, if that's what happened, I would be satisfied with how I spend each day of my life. My quality of life and happiness have increased significantly since I first started asking myself that question.

TeMPOraL8• 11 years ago

I think part of the reason "investing money, creating new products", etc. are "games" is that they're often done only to earn money. It's like a clicker game where you click on a button and gain gold, and you don't give a damn whether the button says "save drowning children" or "OMG ROTFL WTF", as long as it pays out.

Winning in my opinion then, is having an (hopefully positive) impact on those outside of your inner circle, not within it. And the larger the impact, the bigger the win.

I share that sentiment. And then I find most of startups to be stupid games - because only few of them are made to have that impact; majority is created to trick people into joining, which generates growth, which increases the chance you'll have a successful "exit" and boatloads of money. But if one genuinely goes for having a positive impact, fixing or enhancing something about our world, then I cheer the effort. And this is something I myself would want to do - so that on my deathbed I may find comfort in that I left the world a little bit better place than I found it.

PhasmaFelis4• 11 years ago

We wouldn't be quoting Paul Buchheit or talking about Dave Sandberg if they hadn't sacrificed some of those relationships, or health for the products and platforms that we know them for. And that's the real point - legacy. Someone's legacy is not the relationships they had personally, just look at the miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing their vision and impact on groups outside of their circle.

It seems to me that you're measuring the quality of a person's "legacy" by how famous they managed to get. That seems like a really horrible rule to live your life by. I would much rather be a little person who brightened some other little people's lives than an asshole who cheated his best friend and abandoned his child but, gosh, sure did make some cool toys and a lot of money.

glaberficken• 11 years ago

"just look at the miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing their vision and impact on groups outside of their circle."

I'm sorry but am I the only one that doesn't buy the view that Steve Jobs was this irreplaceable visionary everyone eulogizes him for?

Wouldn't pocket size touch screen computers get invented anyway eventually?

LordHumungous2• 11 years ago

You think Steve Jobs lived a meaningful life because he sold some fucking electronic toys to rich people? You really think that's what matters?

mattlutze2• 11 years ago

Hmm... legacy. That's the bit that's tricky.

You suggest that "telling junk from non-junk is an exercise in futility," and in many ways that's quite an agreeable sentiment. So much speculating and lots of people mostly get it wrong.

But if it's futile to tell the junk from the not-, what's the argument for sacrificing your joy and happiness while "chasing the rabbit?" If we can't generally tell the difference between fantastic and flotsam, what's the argument for removing ourselves from the lives of people that care for us and love us?

If it's legacy, I think we're missing the point of it all. Because legacy is a personal goal, is a self-effecting goal. Legacy isn't about helping other people, it's about some lasting kind of immortality.

We have to be more whole than the people we're trying to help. If we deficit of our joy and happiness, if we don't know how to give that to ourselves and our loved ones, how can we possibly hope to give it to others?

There's that parable about dealing with the plank in your own eye, so that you can see clearly enough to deal with the speck of sawdust in your brother's. I think this is a time we might find some wisdom in that story.

It sounds like a lasting impact of Dave Goldberg was the love he helped grow in his family and their friends. There's a heartbreaking outpouring of love in Sandberg's essay. I don't wonder if it was their achievement in being whole in their love, his commitment to his inner circle, that allowed him to bring passion to those outside of it.

I think we'd all be so lucky.

angdis• 11 years ago

Sheryl Sandberg is being talked about because she happens to be in the public eye and has gone through tragedy that we can all relate to (or eventually relate to for those of you that are in your 20's). The real point is not "legacy". The real point is everyone goes through this stuff and we empathize with it. I actually forgot what Buchheit did, but still remember his touching essay from 2012 (as did the first responder to this thread).

"Legacy" may be the focus of your life, but that's just you. There's nothing wrong with that, but also your values are no more valid than anyone else's.

nikster5• 11 years ago

You have a basic misunderstanding of perception. It's common, everyone has this, the idea that you're this bag of meat separate from everyone. What are you supposed to do?

But, you will be good to yourself, and to others, if you discover who or what you really are, on a level where it cannot be described by words. It makes sense, therefore, to put your effort into that discovery.

The products you create - cool, but irrelevant as well. Bucheit is right about that. It's a game.

unclebucknasty8• 11 years ago

I hear this sentiment all the time--about what's really important and what our priorities should be, etc.

But, there is something disingenuous about it. We have engineered a society wherein our very survival depends upon these "games" to which Mr. Buchheit has alluded. And, in his case he has the luxury of considering his economic endeavors to be games.

It's certainly not his fault. I'm saying that we choose the society we want, and we have collectively decided that we will continue to allocate the world's resources--and, hence, our very subsistence--according to our successful participation in these "games". Well, enough (not really), but then, is it genuine to remind people that eating isn't as important as relationships?

If we really believe that our economy diminishes our most important human needs and priorities, then shouldn't we instead be advocating for a new economy?

jamesrcole4• 11 years ago

we choose the society we want

That's not really true. I don't think there's any meaningful sense in which anybody chose this society. We don't have that level of control.

Sven72• 11 years ago

Good message.

In the old days we needed a Buddha, Jesus or a Krishna to remind us of the simple truths. Today we look for them in blog posts. Everything changes and nothing changes.

TeMPOraL8• 11 years ago

What is the New Testament if not a bunch of blog posts published together in a paper form? ;). Writing forms evolve and change names, but they're still fundamentally the same as ever, and as important as they always were.

kmfrk• 11 years ago

I mean, you are commenting on the site created by a guy whose essays people read as scripture. :)

keane• 11 years ago

Buddha taught that there was no God, therefore there were no morals, that the universe was deterministic, but that even so humans should strive to act with loving-kindness. Perhaps in your estimation this is a simple truth.

Jesus' call that one must metanoeo (let one's mind be changed and one's heart transformed) or perish, while related to the Jewish teaching that God is close to those with broken, contrite and humble hearts and found by those who seek him with all their heart and soul, was a new and radical call, not a mere reminder of a simple truth clearly as he claimed himself to be the Truth.

jusben1369• 11 years ago

"May Sheryl and her family be free of suffering."

Out of respect to Sheryl and making sure we learn from her experience I think it's important to post this part: "Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not. When people say to me, “You and your children will find happiness again,” my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, “You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good” comfort me more because they know and speak the truth."

Sheryl and her family will never be free of suffering.

nerdy• 11 years ago

It's easy to lose sight of what's truly important amid the fog of day-to-day life.

bitskits• 11 years ago

Her thoughts on what makes mourning, and specifically the interaction with other people so difficult, are really enlightening. It reminded me that each person experiences life differently, even when we are all united by the same feelings of satisfaction, love, frustration and grief.

My deepest condolences to Sheryl, as well as anyone else who reads this who has lost a loved one. Life is both amazing and delicate, and I think we could all focus a little more on the little things that make all the difference. I know I could.

esusatyo• 11 years ago

My favourite part:

"Celebrate your birthday, goddammit. You are lucky to have each one."

ionised• 11 years ago

I haven't celebrated my last three. They just become like any other day to me and they fly by.

I didn't even realise my last birthday was coming up within a few days until my dad mentioned it to me.

trendroid3• 11 years ago

Same can be said about each day though. Not sure why birthdays are special.

nikster5• 11 years ago

My birthday just came up around then; I prefer to celebrate every day, not just once every 365. But that's just me.

redmaverick• 11 years ago

Joe Biden's speech in 2012 touches upon similar themes that Sheryl writes about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwZ6UfXm410&t=5m10s

"I have to tell you. I used to resent people. They'd come up to me and say, 'Joe, I know how you feel. I know, right? I knew they meant well. I knew they were genuine. But you knew they didn't have any damn idea."

"For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. I realized someone could go out — and I probably shouldn't say this with the press here, but you're more important — I realized how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts. Because they’d been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again, that it was never going to get — never going to be that way ever again."

peteretep2• 11 years ago

    > Because they’d been to the top of the mountain, and they 
    > just knew in their heart they’d never get there again,
    > that it was never going to get — never going to be that
    > way ever again

And Sheryl says:

    > I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have
    > said, “You will find a new normal, but it will never be
    > as good” comfort me more because they know and speak the
    > truth

Is this attitude ... normal? I guess in the near aftermath, it's sure going to feel that way, but ten years later? 20 years later? 30 years later? I can understand never forgetting, but never letting yourself feel as happy again?

I have no experience, but would love to hear from someone with experience >10 years after the fact...

LordHumungous2• 11 years ago

Life is a process of losing the things that you love. Your parents, your friends, your health, and finally your life.

adevine• 11 years ago

I apologize for not having a reference, but I remember reading a study that looked at different types of painful events, and found there are 2 main events that have a pretty much permanent effect on happiness levels: death of a child and death of a spouse. Yes, the acute grief fades, but the sense of loss (the void as Ms. Sandberg puts it) never really goes away.

misterbee5• 11 years ago

Actually, forgetting is the way to feeling as happy again. If you can forget.

Imagine standing at your child's wedding, or your grandchild's wedding, beaming, and then remembering that your spouse isn't next to you.

Balgair• 11 years ago

You just are not the same person after that long. You remember the pain and what it was like, but in a muted way, forgetting the real pain and the unknown of going on another day. You are not you of the day afterwards, you have 10, 20 years of time to digest, forget, and deciding not to look in that crack in your heart/soul. You change, it feels like another person had those feelings and those things happened to a close friend, not you.

sambeau7• 11 years ago

I can confirm this. It has been 15 years since my son died.

On a day-to-day basis there is a new normality in my life and the emotion surrounding his loss is locked tightly in a box. There is plenty of happiness and plenty of new happiness in my life.

However, at all of the happiest moments in my life the box is opened and I am reminded that we are missing the one thing that would make this moment complete.

This is why old people cry at weddings.

falcolas• 11 years ago

This is not my experience. I lost my best friend in the world about... 17 years ago now. No, he has not been with me, nor will he be with me for the many events which have and will make up my life. This hasn't actually changed the events which have occurred, though, nor the joy I've derived from them. At most, my thoughts about him in these events amounts to "Steve would have loved this".

Some of it is forgetting, but more of it is accepting. He's not here, but my friends that I have today are. I will smile and feel a bit melancholic sometimes when I note his absence, and cherish the memories we had created together (like singing Monty Python songs at the top of our lungs on the Ames college campus while wearing togas)... but not at the expense of today.

He was here, and the time we spent together was glorious. He's no longer here (as with so many others), but that's OK. I've made new friends. I've lived and will continue to live for today, for the friends and family and just other people who are here today... not yesterday.

DennisP• 11 years ago

After losing a parent >10 years ago: at first there's a gaping hole in the world, but the world knits itself back together and in its new configuration you find happiness like anyone else. But you know it's a diminished world. It's missing something wonderful, which most people don't even know about.

It's not something I dwell on, but the grief still comes out now and then. Just my experience, and I don't presume to know what it's like losing a child or spouse.

curun1r• 11 years ago

Reading this took me back to the experience of grieving for my dad.

The realization that it will never be okay, but that I can become more okay with it never being okay. The bizarre feeling of grief so unbearable and yet it being one of the few connections left to someone so important to me, and so being unwilling to let go of it. Even to this day, I revel in that grief. I've learned to look at it as consequence of so many wonderful experiences instead of hurt of so many missed experiences. The feeling of that void inside me is the same, but my reaction to that feeling is now to smile rather than to cry.

My heart goes out to her in this time when everything is so fresh and so confusing. I know the feeling of having had someone taken from me long before I even thought about the possibility and yet I'm sure her experience is distinct from mine in so many ways. But in writing about her pain, she's allowed me to tap back into mine in a way that I'm thankful for.

themgt• 11 years ago

I always loved this scene from the movie Rabbit Hole ... "a brick in your pocket"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZKyjCbB-M

aaa667• 11 years ago

As someone experiencing grief for the first time one and a half weeks ago, I'm beginning to understand that bizarreness of grief - the ups and downs, that void..

A lot of people I've spoken to who have experienced grief tell me the same thing - that it will never be ok, but that you can become more ok with it - that you will have moments where you briefly forget and that you get more of these moments over time. I could never have understood this emotion before - I thought it was like in the movies where you're constantly crying, but it's a lot more complex and strange than that..

sambeau7• 11 years ago

Be kind to yourself. Don't rush. You are in recovery. It is my experience that grief is an illness and it lasts more like a year.

Like all major illnesses there will be scars.

However, It will be OK.

scott_s• 11 years ago

It’s not sobbing, collapsing, moaning grief. It’s phantom-limb pain. It aches, it throbs, there’s nothing there, and yet you never want it to go away.

Final lines from "The Day I Started Lying to Ruth: A cancer doctor on losing his wife to cancer", http://nymag.com/news/features/cancer-peter-bach-2014-5/

themartorana2• 11 years ago

The prayer got me the most.

"Let me not die, while I am still alive..."

That's powerful stuff. The idea of asking for more time like a kid in a swimming pool - just 5 more minutes!

I hope I do die while I'm still alive though. Dying after I'm done living sounds worse.

zak_mc_kracken• 11 years ago

I feel the other way around.

I'd rather die while I'm alive (doing or living through something really exciting) than completing something exciting, then entering the dawn of life realizing that I'll never do something as exciting again, and then dying.

I wanna die in the middle of having fun, not in a retirement home.

misterbee5• 11 years ago

Stay at a fun retirement home!

codezero• 11 years ago

This is a good state of mind to be in. I felt this way when I was younger, and as I've aged, I don't feel the same way. It felt better to have your state of mind. Hang on to it as long as you can :)

bambax• 11 years ago

I agree with you; I didn't get the prayer at all. It seems to call for some «pre death» period when you're not dead yet but somehow not truly alive, and I sure don't want that.

Anyway our own death is unimportant since we can't experience being dead. Death that matters is the death of others (dear ones). My payer would be: let me die any which way you want... but let me die first.

PhasmaFelis4• 11 years ago

I understood it differently. It's Sheryl saying the prayer, not Dave. It's not "don't let me die at the prime of my life," it's "don't force me to live on after losing everything that makes life bearable, a living death." To me, also, that is powerful stuff.

tcfunk• 11 years ago

That is not how I interpret that.

I think what that means is "Don't let me be caught up in grief and mourning so much that I become the living dead." Hope that makes sense.

Basically just praying for the strength to carry on and learn from tragedy, rather than to be consumed and defeated by it.

Nimitz14• 11 years ago

That's not what it means as I understand it, it's about not treating someone as already dead before their death. Instead to acknowledge their existance and use the time left positively.

rokhayakebe• 11 years ago

“Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”

guelo• 11 years ago

For those like me that are wondering what is going on, apparently some Silicon Valley executive died recently.

wumbernang5• 11 years ago

Thanks. That's the tl;dr I needed.

Coming from the UK, this made no sense whatsoever to me.

sambeau7• 11 years ago

His death made the front page of the BBC website.

cylinder• 11 years ago

You don't have Google in the UK?

PhasmaFelis4• 11 years ago

I'm a little surprised that this needed to be said. I wasn't aware of the event or any of the people involved, but the first five sentences made it clear that this is a piece by a woman whose husband has just died. It didn't really make me dig for it.

TeMPOraL8• 11 years ago

I think the GP was trying to preemptively answer the question "why is this on HN?". Usually when there is a story about someone's recent death here, it's either someone relevant to the community (e.g. death in the family of one of fellow HNers) or relevant to the technological world (e.g. famous computer scientists, physicists, etc.).

swombat6• 11 years ago

A human being died and another human being went through grief and wrote a moving post about her journey. Do you really need to apply (what I'm sensing to be) pejorative labels to it?

Death may not be your typical HN fare, but it is a subject that touches all of us eventually, so far with no exception. I am glad that she was willing to write this and share it. My life is richer for having read it.

yarou• 11 years ago

I don't think the parent was trying to apply pejorative labels or there was any malicious intent behind their post. It was more along the lines of being unable to parse the title, IMO.

It's also good practice to critically examine any written piece, regardless of whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and ostensibly emotional value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that way.

In fact, my life wasn't changed or impacted in any profound sense after reading this. You should keep in mind that not everyone may think the same way as you, or even share the same reality.

Dewie311• 11 years ago

It's a succinct explanation of why this particular passing might be relevant to this specific site. Maybe as a preemptive answer to others who might be wondering the same thing. Being succinct might come across as cold.

In order to come across as less pejorative, maybe I would have changed "some Silicon Valley executive" to "a Silicon Valley executive". But the rest is fine on the face of it.

slvn• 11 years ago

who's the husband of facebook coo...

Dewie311• 11 years ago

Judaism calls for a period of intense mourning known as shiva that lasts seven days after a loved one is buried.

It's strange to me to prescribe how long people should mourn. Some people are appalled when someone seems to get over someone quickly after they've died. But if they are truly not sad about it any more, I say good for them. What does it help the deceased for the living to be sad over them?

swombat6• 11 years ago

Often people who have lost close ones feel overwhelmed by all sorts of emotions, including guilt - whether over mourning too much or mourning too little. "Is it ok that I'm still grieving? Should I still be expressing this grief to people I meet? Do people expect that I should be moving on now? Am I moving on too soon?"

By declaring the length of the mourning period, religion does there one of the things it does best: give us a sense of ritual and assuage potential guilt at those very important moments in life: yes, it's ok to still be mourning. Yes, it's ok to move on now.

These are not mandates. They're not marching orders. They're a guideline so you don't have to add guilt about mourning too much or too little to what is already a crushing amount of sorrow.

Dewie311• 11 years ago

So religion tries to reduce guilt. Well I guess I learn something totally new every day...

Admittedly I'm not familiar with Judaism except through the limited view of the Bible and comparing it to Christianity.

beagle3• 11 years ago

Depends on how observant you are, in Judaism, it is mandates / marching orders.

The "shiv'a" (literally, "seven") is a lot more than just the mourning period - it is also the period when others are required to come and comfort the mourners. It also officially stops if a holiday happens to fall inside it - thus, it might last as little as half a day, at which Judaism tells you: "It's time to stop mourning". (with the implied statement that the deceased has semi-saint status, and that's why you don't need to mourn as long).

It's not uncommon for people to mourn longer than specified (e.g., the whole 7 days even though there's a holiday that should have terminated it) and for other people to be critical of them for disobeying the letter of the "law"

I don't think it's about reducing guilt; It's about establishing something that's easy to follow for people whose world just collapsed. Guilt management is, perhaps, a small part of that.

During the whole following year (if mourning a parent; 3 months if mourning your child, one month mourning a spouse or a sibling), the mourners are instructed to not enjoy - modern interpretation is to not see movies, shows, attend weddings, etc. I think it's about mourning etiquette much more than it is about guilt.

ars• 11 years ago

Judaism does not require that a person be sad (or not sad) during that time. A person's emotions are what they are.

The mourning time is about actions, yes. But it's more about community. During the shiva a person does not work, and (if they want it) will receive many many visits from members of the community (even people they do not know personally). They can receive those visitors however they want, just as someone to talk to, people who can help, or simply as expressions of support.

People visiting someone during shiva are advised not to talk, but rather to listen. Or even simply to just be there without saying anything. If the mourner wants to talk they will, and if not they won't.

This type of community support is one of the ways Judaism has lasted so long in the face of so much persecution.

primroot• 11 years ago

Here in Panama we have the traditional catholic funeral rituals (which are rarely practiced by the urban population). Part of this are the "nine nights" where the family of the deceased hosts long hours (mostly during the day) of prayer repetitions (velorio) for nine days. Friends and extended family come to visit, and they may choose to participate in the prayers. The guests are received with coffee, fresh cheese and a especial kind of bread. After the ninth night, some mourners choose to continue dressing with neutral colors for months.

As you mentioned, this is mostly about community support.

nikster5• 11 years ago

I think it's not a bad idea. If something on this catastrophic level happens, you're going to be unprepared. If you have a societal framework of how to go about your grief, I can imagine it will help some. It won't make anything better but it might provide something to hold on to when the hour is darkest.

Fede_V• 11 years ago

I have nothing but empathy for her grief - everything I've read about her makes her seem like an amazing woman, but I am very deeply uncomfortable with public displays of emotion like this.

I guess this is one of those dumb culturally ingrained traits, because rationally I cannot really come up with any reason why it should make me feel so uneasy, but I feel like I'm gawking when I read someone describing their grief so publicly.

I wish her and her family the best. May they find the strength to go on.

swombat6• 11 years ago

You're not alone in this. Many people find this difficult both to do and to witness. I think it's because many of us are, sadly, not comfortable with vulnerability. Brené Brown has an excellent and very popular talk on that topic, I warmly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

ohitsdom• 11 years ago

I have a really hard time with seeing grief on social media. It just comes across as shallow to me. People changing their profile picture to the deceased, posting tributes to them... it just seems fake.

I don't doubt their sincerity, I just think it's a really crappy medium for that kind of thing.

Sven72• 11 years ago

As a non user of Facebook it's incredibly weird to see like scores assigned to every tribute or condolence comment.

omouse• 11 years ago

Like = upvote; an echoing of the sentiment expressed. The word does cause some cognitive dissonance.

sambeau7• 11 years ago

If you can't understand why Sheryl Sandberg and David Goldberg are important to the Hacker New community then I fear you have a misunderstanding of what Hacker News is.

xchip3• 11 years ago

Can anyone summarize that long text?

xchip3• 11 years ago

Downvoted? It is a 2000 words essay. We all lost someone special, me too. I was wondering why this essay showed up at the top of YCombinator (and more when it comes with religious stuff).

robobro• 11 years ago

Yeah, I don't see the point either

MrZongle2• 11 years ago

A woman who is relatively famous in some technology circles lost her husband (also famous in the tech community) suddenly due to a tragic accident. Her post comes at the end of a religious mourning period and she reflects upon how she has learned to accept help and work to move on after such a harrowing experience.

It's a pretty good read, and I'm sure it's heartfelt. As others here have mentioned, it's odd to see something intensely personal and thoughtful in a social media post, and it's tempting to dismiss it as a trite attempt at attention-seeking (given the medium) but I don't believe that to be the case.

For the segment of the HN community that hasn't followed the professional activities of Sheryl Sandberg or Dave Goldberg, however, the post will have little relevance other than perhaps some shared personal experiences and sympathy for the loss of the family.

xchip3• 11 years ago

Thanks MrZongle2, much appreciated!

DavidWanjiru• 11 years ago

The way I see it, life is basically a long-winded effort to get loved. To get loved by ourselves, by others and by our gods. Everything everybody does in life boils down to this. From Hitler to Mother Teresa. From Osama bin Laden to the Dalai Lama. You want to do things that matter, to change the world? Why? How do you know they matter? Because those to whom they matter love you for it. You love yourself for it, others love you for it and by your own spiritual presumptions, your gods love you for it, or they will some day. And so, it is not the big things or the small things that matter. It is not saving the lives of millions or attending your kid's play that matters. The only thing that matters is you finding love, however you find it. If there is no love feedback for you, it doesn't matter. That's why nobody is trying to save the starving children in the planets of the Andromeda galaxy, coz there's no feedback for it. And if you think that's a poor analogy, well, there was nobody coming to the slums of Africa to do the things people these days come to do.

michaelsitver• 11 years ago

If Facebook posts were eligible for Pulitzers, this would win. This is so incredibly thought-provoking, well-written, and well-constructed.

Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

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