An Odd Use of Facebook

I think most everyone has done at least one post about Facebook.  I know I’ve done several, but I find the community driven sites like Facebook to be quite fascinating.  Technology enabling the creation of communities is interesting to me.

As I’ve mentioned, I am one of a like 25-30 grandkids on my mom’s side.  (I seriously don’t know how many of us there are.)  And, we are all getting connected on Facebook.  That being said, we usually don’t interact with each other outside of using one of the apps (like Super Poke or something).

But, that has changed.

One of my uncles has cancer – a very rare form of cancer.  He has made it about 5-years past where anyone  thought he would, and much of that is thanks to an experimental treatment.  Over the past six months, they have told him that the cancer is growing again – and he will not be able to go through the treatments again because he has never recovered from the first treatment.  They have offered him alternatives, of which he had taken all of them.

His daughter Mary who is four years younger than I am has been putting out updates about her dad on her status message.  She got her mom on Facebook so that she could do the same.  While it may seem impersonal, given there are probably over 100 of us between spouses, kids, aunts and uncles, it is a much more effective way than a phone tree.

Then, Mary did another thing – the thing that brought everyone out of their shells.  She found and posted  many pictures of the “grandkid” group photos.  They are hilarious to look at now.  And, that is where the comments really started flowing between the cousins.

After that started, it really hasn’t stopped.  Mary posted, one day, that she was watching Lord of the Rings.  I asked which version (tv edited, movie release or full version on DVD).  She answered – which prompted everyone else to jump in and call us geeks.  This status debate lasted about a week, long after it was changed.

About once a week, I chat with Mary’s mom on Facebook.  She has told me how scared she is to lose her husband – how it wasn’t supposed to be like this.   And we joke with each other.  While that side of the family is insanely dysfunctional, they are not without a sense of humor. (Ask Garbanzo about the “quiz of names” he was put through the first time he met that side of the family – or when they found out he was a vegetarian.)    It amazes me again, that while my aunt could be using “chat”, she never would have thought about it until she found it in Facebook.

And because the picture is more embarrassing for the others in the picture than it was for me, I have posted one of the pictures that started it all.  Can you find me?

I’ll give you a hint, I am one of the “older” grandkids.  We think this was taken Christmas 1991.

Heck, I’ll put the other one out there. It was taken summer of 1990.

2 Comments Add yours

  1. Honestly I think that is how Facebook is supposed to be used. I am reconnecting with lots of my family members that way.

  2. Wow ~ thats a lot of grandkids!

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