Death of an Online Friend

No it's not unfair to mourn It happened to me also 3 years ago. My friend had many friends on the internet and her family was very comforted when they received messages from all her friends. In fact I never met her but I got to meet her mother a year later. All her friends still meet on the internet on her birthday and share their emotions. If you can contact the family and express your feelings they will appreciate it. You are entitled to mourn since you interacted with this person on a daily basis. Even when you've never met you were friends.

This is such an amazing experience and it's great it's being voiced. I for one am creating friendships here on myLot and I can tell you I feel so open when I'm talking to them. And when I listen to them I can feel them as if it were in person, physically. I'm guessing there are people who really open themselves to people and probably say things they would never say to anyone else if they were standing in front of them. You can't have an interaction like that without some form of bonding, even if you think it isn't happening, it actually is. There is something very freeing to talk to people without a face, you can be yourself because you think there is a screen between you. Before you know it the screen is no longer there and you haven't noticed it was removed. I certainly would be grieving if something were to happen to my online friends.

I'm sorry to hear your loss. Although you never met her but you have established and built your relationship with her, so you are entitled to grieve for her. You will need to overcome this but I believe you will get over it. I never lose my online friend before but losing someone in real life whom I have met just made me saddened and it's sometime quite difficult to overcome. Well it's the way of live and you'll need to accept it.

I think you are entitled to grieve for your friend. This person was a friend to you even if it has the word "online" in front of it or not. I think you have every right to feel saddened and shocked, and I think you will have to deal with the grief like you would if you would have met the person. Was she friends with other people in the forum where you met? Maybe you could talk to someone else she talked to in there. And I think it is great that you are sending the family a card about how special she was! We still get cards from people we do not know telling us how my grandmother touched their lives, and she passed away a couple of years ago.

You have every right to grieve. I definitely would. I have several close online friends (and developing more here!) and you can bet I would grieve if anything happened to them. Not having met in person doesn't mean that we don't know each other. Online friends can be 'real' friends, sometimes more real than the everyday ones.

I haven't had to deal with it. Yet. I may have to deal with it very soon. A friend who I met online about three years ago had an unexpected heart attack a few days ago, and has been told she needs emergency surgery, with the possibility of it being open heart surgery. Two of her valves are rather badly damaged apparently. We talk every single day. She fast became my best friend and we have NO secrets from each other. We've spoken on the phone about the surgery and we've both cried. As selfish as it sounds, I don't want to lose the best friend I ever had. I'm not ready to face the fact that I might and then when I think that I feel guilty because I should be thinking about her and what she's going through. You have every right to grieve for the loss of your friend. Just because you didn't meet them in person doesn't mean that you're not friends, and you have to learn to cope with that loss just as much as anyone else does. Grieve with them. You'll feel better. Trust me. Grief bottled up is a terrible thing.

what you feel is really normal since you have build a friendship with him the only thing missing is meeting him in person. that would be really hard to dealt with. lol.... i hope you wont get any emails from him or any intant message telling its him your talking still alive and kicking!.

oh really sorry to hear it.........may god rest her soul in peace!!!!!!!

It an new situation to experience as far as i feel...... I hope expering this kinda happeings will increase.....due to advance in communication.... If i was in your situation i really wouldnt know how express my GRIEF.....

I am so sorry for your loss...I have an online friend; we've known each other for about 2 years; she's helped me with my computer problems and even talked me through (over the phone) how to add more RAM, all on my own... I love her dearly; she was sick when I first met her, (doctors still don't know what's wrong with her) and it's been 2 years without a real diagnosis. Her mother called the clergyman over awhile back to prepare her... I haven't been able to talk to her for months and I miss her so very much; she's just been so sick. I wouldn't know what I'd do if I found out she was gone...I feel so much for you and God Bless; grieve as long as you need to. See if somehow you can contact the family and let them know how much you loved your friend; they probably already know a lot about you...

Why is it unfair for you to grieve? Onlime friends have the same impact (maybe more) on us that people that we see every day do... You have to take the opportunity to grieve I think...

What I find strange is why you feel like it'll be unfair to the family and friends of your online friend if you grieve for her... I haven't had to deal with this but what I'm actually afraid of is having an online friend die, and not knowing about it simply because there won't be anyone to tell me, or something like that, that I won't be able to grieve for him/her.

It doesn't matter if you met them physically or not. The person was still your friend whether you saw them or you talked to them from a box every day, your entitled to grieve for the person. This person made an impact on your life. I've been chatting in chat rooms since 98 and i've met a lot of people online that i'll probably never meet in person but some of these people know me better than my own family does and vice versa, they've helped me through some major problems and been there for me at my happiest moments and if anything happened to them i'd have some major crying moments it would be like i lost a member of my family for some of them. I'm sorry for your loss and keep remembering the happy moments.

personally i have the same experience except we are always interacting using our cam. (i do see him almost everyday) Well the day i heard thru one of our online friend that he past away (heart attack) i was shock and feel the same way as you i mean i never meet him personally so i go to their home town in PA.. its a long flight and i able to meet his family and friends.. its kinda akward but they treat me as one of the family.. they tell me stories and stuffs. if i dindt fly there.. i guess its still the same.. but i cant help myself going there. =)

its really makes us sad that a person whom we know but never seen is no more.i hv never handled that situation ever but its quite difficult i think to be in that condition.

Emotions are emotions whether they were in cyber space or in real life; losing someone requires a certain amount of time to rebound from it. I don't think any sane person would ever say that you don't have the right to grieve, a loss is a loss.

I have never experienced that,so I'm sorry I couldn't completly understand your feeling,and I feel sympathetic to you.I just hope there would be something could distract you from grief...

I'm very sad after reading.I understand your feelings to your friend.You feel like it would be unfair for her family.I agree with you ideas,because my father had a car accident when I was 15 years old.So my father lost his job,I must earn a lot of money to live to help my family.It's unfair to me?