Facebook in Heaven

I love a good mystery, especially if it is of a “supernatural” nature. Why wouldn’t I? I was the kid that grew up having tarot cards, Ouija board and watching scary movies (back in the day before “slasher” movies). Imagine my excitement one day when a friend came in looking like she’d just seen a ghost, her hand clutching at her chest feeling like she was going to pass out.

My friend Marilyn (not her real name) lost her husband in November of 2008. She joined Facebook (FB) in December of 2008. Flash forward about 10 months. To say the least, she was freaking out! She had just returned from a business trip and decided to check her personal email which she hadn’t been able to do for a few days. She had an email from FB that her deceased husband, Jack (not his real name) had accepted her friend request. What? How could this be? She did confess that when she did join, she searched for Jack, but his name is common and there were many. Besides, why would she send him a friend request?

Since her deceased husband had accepted her apparent friend request, Marilyn was able to view his FB wall. Things there were logical. She was his only friend and the only other thing on his wall was that he’d joined a FB kidney dialysis support group. The avatar used as his profile picture was one she said suited his personality and that he would have picked. The email address in his profile information was one of his actual email addresses. This particular email address was a freebie he got with a newspaper subscription. She did mention that she thought the email address shouldn’t be good any longer as she never renewed the subscription. The other thing - his birthday was correct.

Our mutual friend, Joan (not her real name) decided to send a friend request to Jack. She also sent him a message via FB. These messages are sent to an email address. Within a few minutes, the email came back as undeliverable. That made sense because Marilyn had not renewed the newspaper subscription. It was either later that day or early the next, that Joan got a message from FB that Jack had accepted her friend request. She then wrote on his FB wall, but never got a comment back.

We discussed the possibilities of what the heck was going on. It seemed interesting to me that Marilyn got the original notice from FB after returning from her trip. She said she was finally beginning to feel at peace over her loss and could finally be at certain places that reminded her of their time together, without crying. Could it then be that with her new found sense of peace, Jack really tried to make contact with her, however brief? Was it possible that someone had not only hacked Jack’s FB account, but Marilyn’s as well, to play a cruel joke? I guess it’s possible, yet I somehow find that hard to imagine. Joan did write a little about this on her own FB wall and had a few friends send her messages that they have heard of this happening. One friend even said he’s heard of a medium that has been very busy with clients having similar experiences.

A few weeks ago, Marilyn was at home on a Sunday evening checking FB. She got a chat message from “Jack”. The message said, “How you doing?” When he was alive, he would call her at night when she was on business trips and when she’d answer her phone he would always say, “How you doing?” She did reply, but the exchange stopped there.

I just love the idea of deceased loved ones trying to contact us through vehicles such as FB (remember, me with tarot cards and Ouija boards) and really don’t want to consider the possibility of this being criminal behavior. I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Has anyone out there heard of or experienced anything like this?