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!

Not condolences but a friends partner and father of her three children took his own life drink/drugs. People were gossiping in front of they're children who had children at the same school as two of her own children. She kept them off school for a few days. But when the children returned to school at playtime other children were saying your dad killed himself new ner etc. The older two children ran out of school in tears. The youngest child was only two.

My word, so sorry to everyone who has dealt with cruel, clumsy and thoughtless people while grieving.

Just after the last of a few miscarriages (and still devastated) and childless, I was in the break room at work when a colleague said to me "I know how you feel. I had a termination because the baby would have been due during my uni exams".
I still think that was unforgivably crass.

You certainly do some people also want to get rid of any reminders they are no longer here straight away.

My aunt was going through our mum's clothes as she lay dieing downstairs (cancer) that's callous.

I must be missing some sort of empathy thing here but half of what I have read I don't see a problem with?

Do people really have such issues with honesty over a dead person? Reality check. Dead people were arseholes at times too

I was about 16 when an old friend of mine died from CF. I went into school and was tearful, girl next to me (who was suppose to be a friend) said "what's wrong?" When i said my friend had died she laughed and said "ahhhh bless." I have never ever forgotton that moment. Nasty little twat that she was.

Unless they were a murderer, rapist or wife beater. It's not really the time to be bringing it up. When there's family members mourning the person.

Just to add my 13 year old cousin was no angel. But we didn't bring it up when he wasn't even cold in his grave.

A friend of mine's cousin died of CF. Shortly before I started the same secondary school she atnded.😪😪😪Such a cruel illness.

We lost our firstborn a couple of years ago when I was 41 weeks pregnant. An acquaintance who I was too friendly with but who I know did mean well came out with ‘having another baby will make it all a lot easier’. It was the last thing I wanted or needed to hear. We don’t speak anymore.

*wasn’t too friendly with

So not just dead people who were arseholes at times then

I meant to add earlier upthread - thank you to @Eastie77Returns for starting this thread. It has been difficult at times, but helpful to me, to read the experiences of others who have been generous enough to share here. It has helped me to find a small scrap of peace in knowing that the utterf*ckwittery of my own experiences (sadly not confined to the death of my dad) have not been unique.

Thank you to everyone who has shared and my most sincere sorrow with, love and condolences to, all who have suffered. When my mum was diagnosed with her first lot of cancer I vividly remember her saying that she could bear anything that people said, thought or did - except their pity. I can understand that, even though pity can be kindly meant and expressed.

But I suppose what I really have learned though my own experiences is that no words, however kindly, sensitively or nicely expressed, are ever enough. None can truly console. And we will always want just more hug, one more word, one last look. Always just one more, even for a few seconds. And that's the one thing we can never have.

Little children's open honesty does seem to be a bit of a balm - on the day of my dad's funeral, my little nephew, on finding that he would be riding in a limousine in the funeral cortège, excitedly pronounced that it would be the "best day of his entire life". It hurt me in the moment. But I understood with a bit of time that it was a lovely, shiny posh car, with deferential staff (undertakers) in tow, and that he couldn't equate the casket in the front car with the grandad he loved.

Thoughts with all who have been kind enough to share their own, most deeply personal, experiences and thoughts. Best wishes to you all. xx

This one wasn't exactly callous but certainly self-absorbed:

When DH's dad died, he got a condolences card from his cousin's wife; the message inside began:

"I'm very sorry about your father but hope that the following will be life-affirming" followed by two pages of detail about her performance in her latest triathlon. She has form for sending the most boastful round robin letters at Christmas which amuse us all greatly and we actually all found this quite funny although appallingly self-centred at the same time.

I had one I had to smile at as I knew the sender meant well. A bereavement card from a friend at Church..' Sorry to hear John has finally died' ( well my poor husband only lingered 6 weeks after the terminal diagnosis,actually)

Another, a bit thoughtless but meant well. In 1987 I miscarried one twin at 11 weeks and the second at 15 weeks. An older acquaintance in the Post Office queue ' Well it's probably for the best. They sat that if one twin dies the other never gets over it'. Maybe so, I would have dearly loved for that baby to survive.

Even my late husband was guilty. Shortly before my first baby was born,my much loved step mum died. My birth mum had died when I was 11. I overheard my husband talking to his brother on the phone,presumably sending condolences.

'It's ok' said hubby ' She was only her step mother'.
You can really go off people.

My Gramps lived with us all my life, he had Alzheimer’s and became very poorly with pneumonia in the two weeks before he passed away, so my mum and I took it in shifts to be at the hospital with him as he was agitated and needed more care than the staffing levels could accommodate, I was in the middle of uni and had assignments and exams that I wasn’t exactly concentrating on at the time, and when my Gramps passed away I was absolutely devastated.

When I went to my course leader to ask for extensions/extenuating circumstances to try and salvage at least some of my grades, she looked at me like a piece of shit and said “well, if you’d spent your time in lectures instead of at the hospital, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I don’t know how I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

People are right plonkers. I never know what to say so just go with ‘I’m so sorry to hear that’ I try to let the person lead from there. If they want to talk more I listen and respond, if they don’t l leave it.

At my Mother's funeral many years ago I volunteered to speak about her. I remarked on her generosity, how everyone was entitled to her opinion! No-one complained, we all knew it was true. She would have been the first to agree I know.

My German Shepard died last year. Our neighbor who we have never got along with came outside as the vet who we called out left (with the dogs corpse) and said “that’s my 6am wake up call gone”

When my mum rang a friend, who they hadn't seen for years, to tell her my dad had died she said "yes, so-and-so already told me, I just can't deal with it right now!" Unbelievable.

This isn't soooo bad but a different family friend said to me at my dad's funeral: "I just can't imagine how he must have felt knowing he wasn't going to see them [my twins who were a few months old] grow up." Errr ... thanks!

I usee to work as a home carer for the elderly and disabled. Sometimes us carers attended funeral of clients we had grown close to.
A few of us attended the funeral of one particular lady, just as the service was beginning, one of the casual care workers suddenly burst into the church wearing a black hat with a face veil and wailed and sobbed loudly throughout the entire church service. The rest of the congregation sat there frozen in horrified silence. It was one of the most embarrassing spectacles I have ever witnessed

Reading all these just makes me see how clumsy and hopeless we are at death and condolence and how quick we are to minimise it and to make crass comparisons.

I think that's the problem, people don't know what to say and wind up saying something inappropriate, not that some of the stories here aren't horrendous.
When my mother died I return to work teaching on the last day of term, to get over the inevitable awkwardness. My form group of 15 years olds knew why I'd been off, I heard them thundering upstairs and as they got to the door they became utterly silent, very eerie too. We did the register and I sent them down for Assembly, the last boy to lead, not the best reputation, came over to my desk, patted my hand and said You OK love? I told him I was til you said that! It was so kind, especially coming from someone I wouldn't have called sensitive, I've never forgotten him.

? I don't get it.

i had to quote this post as its smiliar to what happened to me

i understand it must be awful to lose your wife of 30 years but he never asked how i was-when i broke down one day and said im not coping he just said how do you think i feel-always about him

he also met someone else the next month and acted like my mother didnt exist

neither do i its quite a standard thing people say

I'm so sorry about your sister! 💐💐
People can be utterly thoughtless.

My sib died very suddenly - my empathy too.