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Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband
- esusatyo 11y agoMy favourite part: > "Celebrate your birthday, goddammit. You are lucky to have each one."
- ionised 11y agoI 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.
- trendroid 11y agoSame can be said about each day though. Not sure why birthdays are special.
- nikster 11y agoMy birthday just came up around then; I prefer to celebrate every day, not just once every 365. But that's just me.
- joegaudet 11y agoReally 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.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- GuiA 11y agoPaul 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.html?m=1 http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-today.h... May Sheryl and her family be free of suffering.
- misiti3780 11y agoI have read that post multiple times also - it really puts things into perspective
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoInvesting 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 11y agoI 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 11y agoSpoken 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.
- nerdy 11y agoIt's easy to lose sight of what's truly important amid the fog of day-to-day life.
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agowas he the guy at facebook who sells all your data to the DEA and NSA and CIA? or did he just build the backdoors for them?
- bitskits 11y agoHer 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.
- redmaverick 11y agoJoe Biden's speech in 2012 touches upon similar themes that Sheryl writes about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwZ6UfXm410&t=5m10s 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."
- peteretep 11y 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...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- LordHumungous 11y agoLife is a process of losing the things that you love. Your parents, your friends, your health, and finally your life.
- cwre 11y ago
- PM_ME_YOUR_TITS 11y agoI'm an atheist, so I can't directly relate. But I comprehend the logic throughout her post. RIP SurveyMonkey Dave!
- curun1r 11y agoReading 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 11y agoI always loved this scene from the movie Rabbit Hole ... "a brick in your pocket" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZKyjCbB-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZKyjCbB-M
- aaa667 11y agoAs 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..
- sambeau 11y agoBe 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.
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- themartorana 11y agoThe 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 11y agoI 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.
- misterbee 11y agoStay at a fun retirement home!
- codezero 11y agoThis 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 11y agoI 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.
- saiya-jin 11y agoso rather than bearing the pain, you rather inflict one on closest ones? you realize there not much between (apart from everybody dying at once). you like an easy way out of things, don't you...
- rokhayakebe 11y ago“Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”
- TEMPLEOS_DEV 11y agoJDATE HERE I COME!
- dudeofjude 11y agomillions of people die everyday, the difference is not everyone's death is marketed and mourned, because they are not as influential. if we are open, we can learn from any incident. sheryl high time, so many men would be like salivating for you already.
- ygmelnikova 11y ago"Goldberg collapsed at a private beach-front villa near the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita, near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico" Today, 21,000 children died from causes that are preventable. I don't see any posts on HN about that. http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html "Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou make a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made you. But when thou make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense you: for you shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." -- Jesus Christ
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nness 11y agoI believe it to be distasteful to use the death of someone whom this community has some connection to push a separate agenda. You can call out our priorities as being too short-sighted if you want, but this is a poor way to do it.
- ygmelnikova 11y ago"This community" and "our priorities"? That's exactly my point.
- dang 11y agoPlease stop.
- ygmelnikova 11y agoI created a new post with a recent article on Quartz; "Bill Gates: Keep up the momentum against child mortality" Let's see how that fairs here on HN. I mean, it's Bill Gates, right? It's his agenda, and I suspect part of 'this community', no?
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
- reylsonnick 11y agoReligion is the Earth's cancer. I don't see how this is special apart from the fact that this person belonged to one religious belief. I hope to see rationality and logic prevail over bullshit over the short course of life left for me and my fellow earthlings.
- talsraviv 11y agoGeneralizing, dogmatic attitudes, some of which are religious - and some of which are expressed in your comment - are harmful. It's just as silly - and intellectually easy - to blindly condemn culture and religion as it is to blindly follow them. There's a wonderfully epic two-part South Park episode that makes this point: http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-go http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e12-go-god-go http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e13-go-god-go-xii http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e13-go-god-go-xii
- ars 11y agoYou must be an unbelievably horrible person. Please leave HN and never come back.
- swombat 11y agoWhilst I also think the parent comment is callous and stupid, I don't think your comment is called for.
- guelo 11y agoFor those like me that are wondering what is going on, apparently some Silicon Valley executive died recently.
- wumbernang 11y agoThanks. That's the tl;dr I needed. Coming from the UK, this made no sense whatsoever to me.
- sambeau 11y agoHis death made the front page of the BBC website.
- wumbernang 11y agoAFAIK it didn't on bbc.co.uk. Perhaps bbc.com but I don't look at that. It's all about FIFA bribes and rollercoaster accidents.
- jbrooksuk 11y agoBoth of which are generally more "BBC newsworthy" for us UK residents. With that said, I don't do Football and was part of the Runaway Mine Train crash.
- wumbernang 11y agoI went on that in the early 1990s when it opened. Hope you didn't get injured!
- jbrooksuk 11y agoJust a little whiplash and broken glasses. I was one of the lucky ones. I've been on it once since that day to try and get over it, I spent the entire time shaking and holding on to my partner very tightly, heh. Thanks :)
- Dewie3 11y 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?
- swombat 11y agoOften 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.
- Dewie3 11y agoSo 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.
- swombat 11y agoReligion is a pretty complex thing. I totally agree that christianity tends to be, as Alan Watts described it, "institutionalised guilt"... but that's just one dimension of it. Religion is a huge topic. It's many things to many people. It's never helpful to intelligent conversation to reduce a big thing to a single axis.
- beagle3 11y agoDepends 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.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- miji 11y agowhy is this thread on the top fuck this shit
- Fede_V 11y agoI 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.
- swombat 11y agoYou'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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o
- ohitsdom 11y agoI 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.
- Sven7 11y agoAs a non user of Facebook it's incredibly weird to see like scores assigned to every tribute or condolence comment.
- omouse 11y agoLike = upvote; an echoing of the sentiment expressed. The word does cause some cognitive dissonance.
- sambeau 11y agoIf 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.
- digital-rubber 11y agoI second this, plus i'm annoyed by the religious, in this case jewish, component of this all.
- xchip 11y agoCan anyone summarize that long text?
- xchip 11y agoDownvoted? 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 11y agoYeah, I don't see the point either
- MrZongle2 11y agoA 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.
- xchip 11y agoThanks MrZongle2, much appreciated!
- DavidWanjiru 11y agoThe 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 11y agoIf Facebook posts were eligible for Pulitzers, this would win. This is so incredibly thought-provoking, well-written, and well-constructed.
- piyush_soni 11y agoMay be it's just me, but making a facebook post about it just after your "official mourning period" is over doesn't look like genuine mourning to me.