When grief is just a click away!

Technology today is a real 'Stealer'. It steals oneself of his time, emotions, feelings and at times I think senses also. Last week, I learnt about unfortunate passing away of a student of mine in a road accident. She was studying away from home in a foreign country. Quite bubbly, light-hearted, fun-loving by nature, her demure personality still comes in front of my eyes. It was an utter shocker to learn how only hours after her family shared a very candid pictures of hers on Facebook, she simply disappeared.

Meeting one's ultimate fate while being away from family, in an unknown/foreign country, in middle of nowhere is unfair and unjust. Whole night, I kept wondering how cheated her parents must have felt upon hearing what itself was a shocking news for me. Distances tear us, limit us. That pretty soul, which lived in her own world, pigeonholed herself in a world so different from ours. Parents send their wards abroad for greener pastures, least knowing that these pastures are not only greener but greedy too.

Meanwhile, so it happened that I'm still friends with her on Facebook. Every time I open my news feed, I would find someone or the other in her friends list tagging her, mentioning her in random posts or statuses. My heart went out for her grieving freinds who being technology's child are bound to pool in their condolences in such a way. Though, I was already surprised yet saddned by the way 'greiving' has changed over these years. Instead if being with the family, backing them up or just being with them, I saw horses if them almost pilling up sad messages on her wal, may be assuming, she would reply back.

Have these terms of grief changed really? A natural healing process that allows us to finally come in terms with the loss has actually been disrupted by the way we lead our lives today? Has technology actually mastered us in ways beyond comprehension?

I'm struggling to find answers and yet feeling a lump in my throat.

My condolences with the family. May she, rest in peace which was nowhere to be found, at least in this virtual world. Amen!