After two-and-a-half years, I thought it was time to finally memorialize and lock Leif's MySpace and Facebook pages, and I thought I was ready for that, but the same feeling of taking away yet another piece of his identity surfaced when I actually did it. It wasn't so hard on Facebook. They were very easy to deal with and only removed the "Info" page from his profile, leaving the Wall and Photos. Since Leif hadn't done much to his page, and I had changed his Profile photo and added the other photos, it looks pretty much the same as it did.
MySpace was another story. They kept asking for a scan of his death certificate and I kept attaching and sending it and they kept saying they didn't get it. In each email, I stressed that I wanted his page to be kept and locked, not deleted, yet every time they answered me they would say they were going to delete it and then apologize and say they wouldn't. I wanted it to remain for two reasons, one as another place to remember him, but mostly because he created that page and it was much more "him" than the Facebook profile. I wanted to be able to see it, and had I known what they would do, I would at least have taken a screen shot of the main page and printed it out.
Not to be. They did finally get the death certificate and emailed back that they were deleting his page immediately. I was upset. By that time I had sent them at least five emails, stressing that I wanted the page to be kept. They apologized again, and said they were "working to restore" it, but that it would take at least 72 hours, and that if it wasn't back within a week, I should contact them again.
Well, it will be 72 hours by midnight tonight and we'll see if it's back. I just hope it will be back at all. If not, I wish I'd never told them, though having it out there and open might make the account open to hacking.
So, any of his friends who might be reading this, please visit Leif's Facebook page sometimes and remember him, and if it comes back, his MySpace page. I still feel like he was here with me only yesterday.
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This photo of Leif was taken during our trip to Canada in July 1989. Leif was fourteen years old.
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Wow...it's so neat that you have so many pictures of Leif! And that you can remember so much about when he was a baby and as he grew! He was (and is) so loved, I can tell! I wish I could remember my boys' (I have 2 and they are 18 years apart) younger years better! Tish Smith
ReplyDeleteTish, our whole family is a bunch of photo nuts. I've posted the best photos I have of Leif, and by now that is 1044 photos on this blog! A few are not of him, but are his drawings, or photos he took, or of places he lived, but the majority are of him. The ones I still have are either very much like what I've already posted (multiple shots taken at the same time) or not as good (poor focus or color, exposure), but there are still some new ones and some memories left to post as they come to me. Yes, he was loved, and he still is and always will be.
ReplyDelete