Grief Deceased Friends Phone Number Found Should I Delete It

[gordiescotland1]

Hi I'm finding grief doing strange things to me. My friend of 20+ years died of Covid19 complications shortly before Christmas. Yesterday I was texting another friend and I looked for her number in my contacts and it was one letter above my friend who I suddenly realised I still had his number in my contacts. I don't feel up to deleting it. I've read the previous messages, they are all nice. Is this irrational having a dead friends contact details in my phone? 

[scorpiojo]

Not irrational at all, and the messages are worth keeping.

[Canary42]

No more irrational than having them in an address book in the pre-smartphone era.   Memories are precious, and any "keys" to them should not necessarily be expunged.

[Rosetta]

not at all, for a while its still your contact with your friend, after a while you will feel ready to let it go, and that entirely depends on how  you feel

[anneasquith]

Keep it. In time the messages may well become pleasant for you .

[jno]

no, not at all, no harm to anyone in leaving them, no benefit to anyone in deleting them; and perhaps some pleasure in being reminded of them.

[haras2]

Our DIL died very suddenly in 2015

I still have her last messages and they are a source of consolation

Keep them for now and see how you feel...

[Barsel]

My very best friend and I fell out once many years ago.

When the Covid struck, she wondered if I was ok and phoned me but I wasn't at home so she left a message. I phoned her back and we became friends again. I still have her message on my answering machine even though our friendship is fully restored. We talk on the phone all the time and she often has to leave me a message, but I only keep that first message asking if I'm ok.

[bednobs]

My dad died suddenly last year. I still have my mum in my phone as "parents" and can't bear to change it

[Old_Geezer]

Logically you no longer have a need for the number and at some point it will be allocated to someone else anyway. Emotionally it's quite a step to delete a reference to a friend from your phone and thus your life. Were I you I'd leave it until feeling strong enough to take that step, if you ever do. No need to do so, nor to rush into it.

[windywillow]

My brother passed away 5 years ago, I've kept an answerphone-message from him, can't bear to delete it.

I listen to it occasionally, in the beginning it upset me but now I can listen to it and smile.

[elliemay1]

My friend passed away in Sept 2022 and I still have her messages, I would never think of deleting them

[Ringlet]

No, not irrational at all.  There will come a time when you can look at your friend's phone number in your phone and feel only warm feelings of memory, rather than the raw pain you are feeling now.  

So do not delete your friend's number.  It is just one of the many links that you have to the person you loved, and who is gone from your life.  

Be kind to yourself, and do not judge yourself too harshly. 

[Omg21]

A good friend of mine died suddenly last year and I still have her details in my contacts.  I don't want to remove it as I feel that it helps to preserve the memories of the good times we had together.

[Ellipsis]

It's definitely not irrational to keep it. If you wanted to, you could rename the contact e.g. put a Z in front of it to put it at the bottom of the list; you could also mackle the phone number so that it could never call it.