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Bereavement

Do you delete numbers off your phone when someone dies?

(86 Posts)
Liz08 Fri 09-Mar-18 11:42:35

It seem that quite a few people still have the phone numbers of family and friends who were no longer alive on their mobiles.

My dearly beloved Dad passed away just over a year ago and I deleted his number a few weeks later, now I feel bad.

I did keep the string of texts sent to my sister as I sat by his hospital bed in the weeks before he died. They remind me of the unfolding story.

GrandmainOz Mon 04-Feb-19 07:01:36

I "archived" my son's Facebook account. It means it's in the ether somewhere. Not deleted and could be reactivated. I had to close it down as seeing his photo each time would send me into a meltdown. Many of his friends weren't happy about my decision, but I did it for my own sanity, after looting his photos first and saving them in a private file.
I still have my Mum's number and our last texts on my phone (she died 10 months ago). Her last message, 36 hours before her death, was asking how I was.

BradfordLass72 Mon 04-Feb-19 07:44:56

I don't have a phone but the concept is the same when a Facebook friend dies.

I don't delete but I once tried to go to the FB page of a friend who had died 4 years before and where I went on her birthday each year, just to remember her, not to write anything.
Someone had deleted the page so I took her off my friend list.

TerryM Wed 20-Mar-19 05:29:23

My father had Instagram. He only dis one post. Only followed 2 people and hadtqk people follow him. My son and I
I still look at that one photo
He has been gone 5 years
I still have all his emails . Dad was house bound due to ill health but quite computer savvy
Mum wasn't. Her nursing home has a Facebook page. It me about 14 months to unfriend. It was very very hard

CynthiaHatch Tue 26-Mar-19 11:30:56

No, I don't delete it.

CynthiaHatch Tue 26-Mar-19 11:35:43

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Bellasnana Wed 27-Mar-19 03:03:44

No, I can’t bear to delete.sad

grannymary Sun 31-Mar-19 12:44:21

I still have mobile number for DH who died in December 2017 in my phone. Feeling a bit down on Valentine’s Day this year, I sent him a text telling him I loved him. Imagine how spooked I was to get a reply 5 minutes later. It never occurred to me that numbers were reused.

keffie Sun 31-Mar-19 18:23:43

Up to each person. I still have my husband's in my phone who passed unexpectedly a year ago. I have no plans to take it out either. It's a personal choice

lure1959 Fri 05-Apr-19 08:19:05

One month after my wife passed my daughter put all her mums numbers on my sim did not know alot of them but it tells me she had a lot of freinds try not to feel bad i did the same take care

M0nica Fri 05-Apr-19 08:49:05

Yesterday I broke out a new address book, still keep one as back up. The old one was nearly 30 years old and cluttered with multiple addresses for DC as they went through their peripatetic student and early working years, their current addresses, where each has lived over 10 years which are difficult to find among the clutter, addresses of those no longer in my life - window cleaners and piano tuners - and those who have died: parents, sister, other relations, and those friends, now alone as their spouses have died and one name has been scratched out.

I now have a neat workable address book and it is actually quite nice.

On my computer I still have the last exchange of emails between me and a dear friend, organising a visit, just before her sudden and unexpected death. I am both glad that her name and address are no longer in my address book, but so glad I still have that last flurry of emails.