It’s a bit of an aibu but I don’t think that’s the right place to ask this as it’s sensitive and I’m not up for a fight.
Backstory:
My grandad, my very best and only friend on the planet is dying of cancer. He was more like a father as he and my grandmother raised me for most of my life, and after she died I was his only friend and carer too. His actual children didn’t really bother too much with him until the past year or two where I was essentially elbowed out of his care and decision making.
He wants to talk about his mortality but no one else other than me will. He hasn’t spoke to anyone else about his end of life wishes or what he’d like for his funeral. I believe it’s my responsibility to listen to him and support him best I can. After he has died his family will just fight over things like the funeral and material crap and make it all about them as individuals, just as they have done in his life. The competitive grief will be unbearable. My grandad and I have always spoken openly about our hypothetical deaths and dying over the years, I never found it a taboo subject and as he got older he appreciated this. We also had lots of laughs devising hypothetical bad taste and crazy funerals or inheritance rules. Unfortunately I know no one else who feels this way.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk with him about my feelings regarding his death because our priority now needs to be him and his feelings but as nobody in my family will face up to what’s actually happening , I sit in silence, ruminating, unable to make sense of or rationalise what’s going on in my head or talk about my feelings.
The end is very near and away from him, I want to be able to say that out loud and have someone else recognise this. I want to feel I’m doing something to prepare myself for that, and for me that requires talking. I don’t even know what to say but just having the ability to say it and be heard would make a difference.
He has made peace with his mortality and has said he is ready to go. I don’t think he’ll be alive by the weekend, and still his family pretend it’s not happening. I don’t understand the British reluctance to talk about mortality, death and dying. I don’t understand why in the face of glaring evidence to the contrary we pretend it’s not happening and make small talk about the weather and what Mrs Smith next door is doing to her front garden. Why am I prevented from saying out loud to my family that I’m going to miss him and that I can’t imagine life without him? That I don’t know how I’m going to cope without being able to talk to him? Why after his death can I not feel happiness for him and celebrate knowing him openly, instead having to sit in silence while my mother and her siblings fight and make it about only them?
Aibu in wanting to speak about death and it’s impact and wanting to know from those affected too that they are feeling the same way I am (not just about my grandfather but about me, the planet, humanity in general) Aibu in thinking it’s ridiculous we as a society don’t really talk about the end of life until after it’s actually happened? Other cultures seem so much more open about death being just another inevitable part of life but we hide it away as if it’s a shameful secret & pretend it’s not happening.
Tl;dr - why don’t British people talk openly about mortality and death?