The most callous/inappropriate words of condolences you’ve seen

[Eastie77Returns]

My friends husband recently died. They were a lively, party hard couple who hosted parties with epic drinking sessions and were known as users of recreational drugs. The husband died from an illness that could be linked to excessive drinking but at this stage none of us (friends of wife) know exactly what killed him.

One of our friends has written on his memorial page (I’m paraphrasing a bit): “RIP xxx. Gone too soon, you were a lovely soul. Your lifestyle caught up with you in the end but you lived life to the full and not everyone can say that”. She is not a native English speaker so I have no idea if she meant it to come across the way it did but all of us were WTF when we read it😮

I’m veering between finding it comically inappropriate and a bit callous and not sure which of the two it falls under!

I agree - see the 3 minute short film by Brene Brown ‘Empathy vs Sympathy’ where she makes this very same point.

💐to all those on here who have lost a loved one.

When a friend's husband died, at his funeral one of his friends told my friend, oh don't cry, just think of him as dead meat.
I'm surprised he didn't end up joining my friends late husband!!

Agree with those who say that the loss of a child can not be compared to any other kind of loss (especially not the loss of a pet FGS!)
I have not lost a child, but as a PP said, I can see how it would change the shape of your whole life, and change you fundamentally as a person.

For the record, I am obsessed with my dog and I know that I will be inconsolable when he dies, but he will die before I do (hopefully 😬) so I will have to get my head round it. I expect it to hurt as much as it did when I lost my parents, but the difference will perhaps be how long that grief lasts for, and the different shapes that grief will take as time goes on.

When my Dad died, one friend didn’t get in touch by phone, text or social media which I was a bit surprised by. I eventually phoned her a couple of months after he’d died, and she apologised for not having been in touch but ‘hadn’t known what to say’. I thought that was a bit lame when a simple text saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ would have done the trick.

One distant relative (middle aged) sent a card containing a message which started ‘OMG!’ which was just a bit odd rather than unkind or wrong. We laughed about it.

When I posted on FB about my Mum dying, one elderly auntie wrote:
‘We all miss x so much. Lol. Auntie E’
Obviously a simple mistake as aunt E clearly thought ‘lol’ meant ‘lots of love’. I laughed about that one too.

My mum and dad died very close together and lots of people said: ‘at least they’re together now’, which is obviously well-meant but it annoyed me a bit nonetheless. Maybe because they died younger than anyone might have expected them to, so I was feeling quite cheated generally to have lost them both before I was middle aged. Also because I don’t believe in heaven or the after life, so I don’t really believe they are ‘together’, other than that their ashes are literally in the same plot of earth 😂

I made a tremendous mistake when I was young and had not had the experience of a death of someone I knew.

This person's husband and father both greeted me and I said, to my utter horror:

" I am so sorry. It could not have happened to a worse person".

I knew it didn't sound quite right and they had kind of quizzical expressions so I tried again to make it sound better:

" It couldn't have happened to a better person"

" The worst thing to happen to the worst person" at which point I just gave up saying anything.

They simultaneously nodded and shook their heads while I wished a hole would open up and swallow me whole.

I knew they thought I meant well...

@KittenKong Your Dad sounds awesome. How brave to show such empathy at that time.

Someone I went to school with died.
On her Facebook page people were saying how much they’d miss her.
Someone else from school put “How did she pass?”
I’d think it myself but never ask. No one replied to the message that she got decapitated when she was hit by a freight train in the middle of the night

My dad died when I was 16 in the middle of my alevels - he died on a Friday and was buried the following Friday. The Monday after his funeral my form tutor who was also my art teacher said ‘’I hope you’re over it now and can crack on with your alevels’. I walked out

Two weeks after my husband died, suddenly, after twenty one months marriage; 'feeling better now?' as if I had 'flu, and from a friend 'at least he died before he could be unfaithful to you' said in front of several others, to stunned silence.

Yes dad was… so often the voice of calm reason (the rest of us are all very… hmmmm… dramatic).

He enjoyed watching the treatments and was got a row (and eventually a mirror) for squirming to watch his spine taps.

He had a book called something like ‘famous medical mistakes’ (a bit more high brow than that I guess knowing him) and he’d enjoy reading it when the doctors came around and asking them quite technical questions).

He joked about losing his teeth (to the tune of ‘letter from America’) and we all took the mickey when his hair grew back after chemo (the joke was that he was dying it because it was still black) ‘I told you it wasn’t dyed!’.

the church was packed at his funeral although he was a very private and quiet man. He was very funny and had an extremely dry sense of humour. He said he didn’t like dogs - but meant yappy ones like our unruly pooch, and loved spaniels.

Work colleague was feeling very low and in the end burst out crying, her line manager said why are you crying your sister will be dead soon. How she didnt get punched I will never know

No! What is wrong with people???

At my Dad's wake (Dad died aged 46, I was aged 14) one of his alleged friends told me to look after my mum and asked when I was going back to school (it was the holidays), and I've just realised his wife once told my Mum I was terrible as I stopped attending church, Mum said "she lost your Dad at 14, she has every reason to stop going". But I also remember a very stoic group of my Dad's friends not saying much but being a huge support at the wake. Sometimes saying nothing is better!

Age 11 at my nan’s funeral, who I was extremely close to, my uncle from the other side of the family said to me, ‘oh well, life goes on’. I’ve always thought it was a terrible thing to say, especially to a child who was clearly devastated!

I lost my mum on Christmas eve just gone and then my partner four weeks later in January both suddenly, he was just 50 my mum was 67. The worst one i heard was imagine all the holidays you can have now with all that inheritance. Never mind i have lost my mother and my fiance who i was marrying at the end of this month. A holiday or two should get me right over that…. If i didn’t laugh I’d cry.

Oh and the circle of life thing. And - my personal favourite (not) ‘they aren’t really gone if you remember them’ (yes the bloody well are, otherwise I’d be calling him up and whinging about spiders in the sink or dodgy wiring…)

@KittenKong Your dad sounds like a giant of a man.

I confessed to a friend how emotional I was feeling after visiting a dear relative (for what I thought was the last time) who was suffering greatly with dementia and multiple organ failure. Friend asked how old relative was and when I answered "80" she shrugged "well, what do you expect".

I don’t know if she meant it so sound so dismissive but I'll never forget it.

It shouldn't be a competition.

Indeed he was (generally referred to as ‘a gentleman’). Thanks for letting me remember - it will be 20 years in a few days (where does time go???h

At my mum’s funeral, my aunt said to me “It’s all ok, I’ve had a vision of her dancing with Jesus”.

@beautyisthefaceisee I don't think that was the intention. Her Father was making compassionate comment in the face of his own struggle.

On phoning my boss to say I was taking leave because my father had died during the night, after a long and painful battle with cancer - ‘never mind, God is good !!’

My mum died early one Wednesday morning. Having dealt with Police (she died at home), doctor and funeral directors, as well as distraught son and siblings, it was never going to be my best day so far. Mum was (and still is) my absolute hero - I loved her unquestionably. Later that evening, after several very large glasses of wine, bawling my eyes out and quite literally tearing my face off with grief - D(?)P pipes up 'I never want to see you behave like that again.' Followed by 'and I'm sure your son doesn't want to either.' Oh FO.

When my husband died I had from my mother of all people (who lost her husband, my dad 14 years) .. oh are you still upset..’3 months afterwards, you’ll get over it 😡

my friend..‘I’m so sorry but you’ll be fine, it’s similar to being divorced I know how you feel’

no you fucking don’t

Are you still with him?!!!