Family Uses Winking Face Emoji To Announce Grandmother's Death

A winking face emoji announced the death of a beloved grandmother in a local Spanish newspaper on Saturday.

Carmen Bustamante Barango had told her children  that when she died she wanted to be remembered in El Periodico de Catalunya with her favorite symbol, national daily newspaper ABC reported. 

After she died at her home in Barcelona at the age of 75 on Friday, her offspring immediately put her plan into action.

On Saturday, the announcement of her death was published on page 38 of the newspaper and on its website — complete with the cheeky graphic, which is more commonly associated with electronic messages and websites.

"She finished her journey -- in this world -- at her home," the notice read.

"She was a character and a great mother who never stopped being a child," her son Roman Zabal, who wrote the obituary, told El Pais. 

He said she communicated with her children via the instant messaging app WhatsApp, and that the winking face emoji was her favorite. The cause of her death is unknown. 

"She wasn't religious and told us that , if any [religious] symbols ... appeared, she would come back to life and come looking for us," Zabal added.