The kindness of strangers on Facebook

HAVE you seen the BBC’s new advert for its drama output? It features Suranne Jones (I love her in Scott & Bailey) reciting a poem, Solitude, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, while images of actors flash on the screen. The poem begins:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough on its own.

It goes on to warn that people don’t want to see tears. This idea that the world is on your side in times of happiness, but not in times of sadness will be understood by many who have been bereaved.

It continues:

Rejoice, and men will seek you; Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, But they do not need your woe.

Nevertheless, over the past week I’ve found the opposite is true. My precious little Maltese dog Bonnie died, after sharing my life for more than 13 years, and just now I’m so upset I still can’t even write her name without crying.

But I have three Facebook pages, one private and two (Bel Mooney-Writer and Bonnie the Maltese Dog) open/public — and I shared my sad news on them.

I was overwhelmed by the hundreds of messages of sympathy and understanding, from friends and strangers alike. Mostly strangers. It was extraordinary.

Interestingly, research by Denmark’s Happiness Research Institute found Facebook makes people ‘lonely and angry’ . . . rather the mood of the poem. So people sit at home alone peering at the seemingly happier lives of others.

That poem ends:

But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain.

I can’t deny that — not when I write an advice column that addresses loneliness and bereavement. Oh, but let me also rejoice in the other side — in the human sympathy which listens, really cares, and offers such comfort.