'The View's' Meghan McCain Responds After Twitter User Criticizes Her Christmas Eve Note to John McCain

The holidays are meant to be celebrated with loved ones. As Meghan McCain prepared to mark her first Christmas without her late father, John McCain, she aimed to honor the former United States senator with a heartfelt post on social media, but she received some unexpected reactions.

John McCain died on August 25 at the age of 81. He had glioblastoma, which is an aggressive form of bain or spinal cord cancer. Medical professionals diagnose about 14,000 cases of glioblastoma in the U.S. a year.

The View co-host set out to honor her late father via Twitter on Monday. The 34-year-old shared a picture of her father as he cooked on a grill, which included the caption: "I love you. Merry Christmas Dad, ⁦@SenJohnMcCain⁩—wherever you are."

The message in McCain's tweet to her late father received mostly positive feedback, with many suggesting her father was in heaven. Others wished McCain a Merry Christmas, or assured her that they understood her pain because they had also lost a loved one. But not all the responses were so supportive.

One person said McCain should "do this in private." McCain responded that it was important destigmatize grief, death and cancer.

"If there's one thing I'm doing in 2019 it's to continue to destigmatize talking about grief, death and cancer. My father shared his life in public, I share it in death," she tweeted. "To all of you out there missing a loved one tonight—you are not alone. I'm alongside you, sending strength."

McCain also posted a picture of her dad on Instagram. While the photo included the same caption as the Twitter post, the image showed the Republican leader all smiles as he sat on a bench.

McCain continued to post to Instagram on Tuesday, sharing a picture of her best friend, hairstylist Josh Rupley, writing in the cpation that she "would not have made it through 2018 in one piece without" Rupley. She also wished everyone a Merry Christmas on Twitter but especially to Patti LaBelle, who gave McCain her "holiday mantra" through the infamous "Where My Background Singers?" moment from the 1996 National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony.

At John McCain's funeral in September, The View co-host honored her father with a heartbreaking 17-minute eulogy.

"His love was the love of a father who mentors as much as he comforts. He was endlessly present for us, and though we did not always understand it, he was always teaching," she said. "He didn't expect us to be like him. His ambitions for us onward from worldly achievement was to be better than him.

"Armed with his wisdom, informed by his experiences, long before we were old enough to assemble our own... For the rest of my life," she continued, "whenever I fall down, I get back up. Whenever I am hurt, I drive on. Whenever I am brought low, I rise. That is not because I am uniquely virtuous, or strong or resilient. It is simply because my father, John McCain, was."