Mumsnet Talk

This is just a place for people to have a good vent about the daft things people have said to you after a bereavement .

I am well aware that most things are not said to hurt anybody but sometimes they do and it is good to have a place to moan about it without having to be nice and think of someone elses feelings .

My starter for ten after my 14mth old son died :

My mums friend telling me I should get a cat . It took me all my strength not to punch the woman .

I have a huge list of them but they are all type ones so I'll start with a bizarre one instead.

My GP repeatedly said to me, "It's ok to feel sexy, you know," over and OVER again when I saw him 11 days after my DS2 had died and only 4 days since the funeral! Is that not the weirdest thing to say to a newly bereaved mum? He also literally stuffed my cardigan pockets with condoms.

He was offering ME pills to 'help' but I think he needed them more than me!

Butterball , that is one of the weirdest things I have ever heard and I have heard some shite .

Iss it just me that finds 'keep your chin up' really infuriating? Think the nastest one i got and my mum got the same just relastionship changed. 'well at least its not your only brother/child'

Wow. I was going to post about my mum repeatedly saying "it happens to all of us you know" when my amazing MIL passed away recently, but these two are in a whole different league!

It is, isn't it. My DH was ready going to complain but tbh at the time it was too much on top of everything else.

At the same appointment he repeatedly called my DS2 a miscarriage (he was stillborn at 36weeks), said that it was probably for the best that my DS2 had died as he "probably would have been disabled". Never mind that my DS2 didn't have a thing wrong with him or the face I'd take a disabled live baby over a dead baby any day of the week! Oh and let us not forget when he said how upset the doctors and midwives at the hospital would have been "as they had invested a lot of time in you." I think they were upset as a baby was dead not because I had been a waste of their time!

Oops, total rant there.

Keep your chin up is bloody annoying , the other one that used to really get to me is when people would look at me with "that" look and say "So are you all right now then ?"

No I am bloody not

Ranting is a good thing butterball , there are not many places you can do it (in my experience anyway)

You know, if that GP is still at that surgery I might write to them. It's over 3 years later so will probably come across as loopy but better late than never I suppose. It'll make me feel better and even if the letter is just shown to the GP and nothing done it might make him behave more appropriately to another bereaved person.

I also just 'love' the good old, "At least you have another child." [need a rolly eyes smiley!]

I don't think it matters how long ago he was a pillock , the facts are still the same . It may also be very cathartic for you to get it down on paper .

Oh yes , once we had more children then obviously I was fixed and happy for ever .

'I know what you are going through now' my MIL to me after her dog died just after my Dad.....

Aaargh at "chin up". Yes, of course, that'll sort it all out! Had that after 2nd mc 3 months after dd2 died.

So. "Perhaps it was for the best". Err. No. Nothing wrong with dd2 at all.

Consultant in hosp the DAY AFTER dd2 died, when I asked for the medication to stop my milk coming in, "Oh just wear a tight bra" and when I mentioned my age in relation to trying again "Oh Cherie Blair pushed one out at 47". Fine. Ta.

My friend split up with her long term partner a few weeks after my dad died.

She said to me that her loss was just like mine.

I very nearly hung up on her.

God these things are terrible. Have no such horrendous anecdotes but .......

When my Dad died after a long illness I told a friend of his that we were relieved that it was finally over, to which he replied 'well some of us never wanted it to happen at all' . That's alright then.

Another friend, at his funeral, said to me 'I don't think you were his favourite were you?'


At my Mum's funeral I was just incensed by all the people weeping. I know you're supposed to but I bloody wasn't so I failed to see why they couldn't hold it together.

AM very shocked at some of the things you have had to listen to!

When my Dad died the most annoying thing was people harping on about what lovely memories we had of him.

Not mine but 'borrowed' from friend at work and other colleague - 'Well at least he didn't leave you deliberately' - my friend was widowed at very young age and colleague's DH had left her

I hate keep your chin up. Also "least your young, you can have another"

"are you the one whose wife was ill - how is she?"

Taking my mother's lovely clothes to a Cancer Research shop, "Don't want to hear any miserable stories [wasn't offering any] Oh, don't you have any summer clothes?"

After I miscarried, mil started trying compare my loss to her having her dog put down.

These are terrible So sorry you've all had to hear these things.

"Well at least you won't have to visit her any more" was what someone said to me after a friend died.

Three weeks after my mum died, went back to work and somebody asked me 'are you over it now?' I thought she was unsure what she said, maybe she thought I'd been off because I was ill so said, you know my mum died and she said, yes, but you have had three weeks off!

2 weeks after one of my twin sons died (aged 7 months) in 1982 I couldn't afford a single buggy so had to resort to putting my shopping in one side. Someone I know said 'where's the runt of the litter, the little 'un, in hospital?' I quietly explained and she said 'it is for the best I think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

If anyone said that to me now after the loss of a second son (aged 7 YEARS) I would rip their heads off and shove them up their own arses.....oops pardon my turn of phrase

Malakers!! (Brilliant greek swear word that means wankers)

After my brother died from an aneurism (aged 22), one of my mom's friends, who had an adult son with a drug addiction, came over to sympathise, and then offered something in the line of "well, you're better off with a son dying than a child with a drug addiction". Years later I accept that she probably meant it breaks your heart to see your child destroying himself bit-by-bit, but at the time I remember my mom crying when she had gone, saying she'd do anything to have my brother back, she wouldn't even care under what circumstances.