ST. LOUIS _ Elizabeth Snyder has no desire to hide her grief away.
The wife of fallen St. Louis County Officer Blake Snyder made that abundantly clear in a series of recent Facebook posts that have been viewed by thousands _ some of them implying that she should be more private with her pain.
At 24, Snyder is part of a generation of people accustomed to sharing their lives online. She is a police widow of the social media age.
Her candor has reaped encouragement and support from people around the world. But it also garnered some creepiness along the way.
Snyder remains steadfast in her mission to use the attention to humanize officers. It's something she believes her husband would have supported, given his experience policing protests in Ferguson in 2014.
"He told me horror stories about how people didn't treat them like humans," Snyder recalled during a recent interview. "The reason for me being public with such a private issue is to raise awareness for law enforcement officers because more people need to understand that officers are human, they have families and children and lives outside of work."
Finding purpose has helped her through the experience, she said.
"It's tiring, but it's been good having something to do every day," Snyder said. "It's been a good distraction from the real issues and reality of what I'm going home to."
Blake Snyder, a four-year veteran of the St. Louis County police, was shot to death on a domestic disturbance call Oct. 6 in the Green Park neighborhood in south St. Louis County. He was 33. An 18-year-old man has been charged with his murder.
The region reacted with compassion. Donations poured in. Snyder's patrol car became a shrine of flowers, cards and other mementos outside the Affton precinct station.
Ten days after her husband's death, Elizabeth Snyder posted a self portrait with 2-year-old son, Malachi, asleep on her chest as she wept. It received more than 17,000 shares and more than 20,000 comments and was featured on the "Today" show website.
"It's been 10 days ... 10 days since my heart was ripped from my chest," she wrote in the post. "Ten days since my other half was taken from me. This pain that hasn't subsided, that hasn't alleviated, is unbearable and unending. But this child here _ he has been the hope in my heartache. He is the reason I get up each day. The reason I keep it together as best I can. The reason I push through."
Her postings and an interview with the Post-Dispatch about teddy bears made from her husband's police uniform led to national coverage that sent business skyrocketing for the Illinois seamstress who made them.
More than 26,000 Facebook viewers watched her son Malachi, or Chi, as she calls him, play peek-a-boo in some kitchen cabinets after Christmas.
More than 250 commented Dec. 30 after she posted a picture of the house in Edwardsville she once shared with her husband, bidding it an emotional farewell. She is moving to St. Louis County to be closer to her brother, also a St. Louis County police officer.
"This drive is difficult every time. But why did it seem harder this time? Maybe it was because Chi was with me," she wrote. "Maybe because he still recognizes it as 'Daddy's home.' Or maybe it's that when I see it, all I can see is us constructing that fence, or pulling those weeds, or you grilling those steaks with your favorite sauce. The healthy choice for us was to leave, but at the same time, it's a heavy realization. The realization that I'm going to have to wait a while before I can see you again. But oh, when that day happens, what joy I'll feel ..."
Every Facebook post generates hundreds of private messages sent to her from people around the world, she said. She has tried to respond to each, but she said she still has hundreds to go.
Relatives joke that they can barely keep up with her schedule of public appearances, ranging from a park dedication in her husband's memory to fundraisers for her family and other law enforcement causes.
Recently, Snyder, her brother and her husband's parents did a ceremonial puck drop at a hockey game between police and firefighter teams, a closing event during the Winter Classic at Busch Stadium.
But there has been a dark side.
In late November, Snyder said it was "a little horrifying" when someone hacked her Facebook page and used it to send pornographic material to her friends.
About a week after that, someone created a page using her late husband's name and image and began sending messages.
"It makes me sad because people in this world are so sad that they would use such a situation to their benefit," she said in a video she posted to Facebook when it happened.
Her most widely viewed video, seen more than 60,000 times on Dec. 7, responded to critics _ some of whom complained that she was "milking" her husband's death and "craving attention."
"I'm sorry that I'm in the public eye," she told viewers. "I didn't ask for my husband to be taken from me ... There has been amazing and overwhelming support that we have been given, so for someone to tell me I need to go lock myself in a room and not come out of my house for a long time blows my mind.
"That's OK if that helps you heal, then that is awesome, that's not how I heal, and I would appreciate it if people stop telling me to go hide in dark room. ... It hurts my feelings that I'm being told not to post on Facebook or share the joy in my life because Chi is the joy in my life. He's what makes me happy in a very dark time. ... I like to post pictures of my son because I'm happy when he is happy. ... That is the joy I'm grabbing on to in such a dark, dark, dark storm. ... That doesn't mean I miss Blake any less."
Her next project: helping with a documentary about her husband's life, to be made by a woman who found her story on Facebook and wants to raise awareness about violence against police.
