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!

A friend's DH took his own life. They had young dch and it was very unexpected. At the funeral, friend coped brilliantly (on the outside) and held it together. My DH wasn't at the funeral but when I told him she did well he said "Perhaps she's over it"! Yeah, like, a week and she's fine!

I never know what to say when people die. I don’t want to say the same hallmark card phrases… I can understand how people get it so wrong!
At least they’re saying something.
when my friend lost her baby daughter it was the silence that was deafening from so many people.
I’d rather people get it a bit wrong but mean we’ll and reach out.

This is very common.

My own DM has never asked me or my siblings about our grief at the loss of DF. He had a traumatic upsetting death, and I was around for much of the lead up ( he became seriously ill on out holidays, though had a long term condition). The weeks leading up to his death were awful. I'm haunted by them.

She just doesn't see that we are grieving too.
I think this is quite usual though & I don't resent it. I'm a little surprised you are as gobsmacked as you are.

My two-year-old and I moved in with a friend, when she was heavily pregnant. She duly gave birth, and we lived together happily until the awful day he was killed in a car accident. He wasn't even one.

She was estranged from the father, and he'd never seen his child (nor paid a penny in maintenance), but he and his godawful family made it to the funeral, which was obviously horrific and made worse by their malignant presence. His sister was pregnant at the time.

A few months later, she sent my friend a picture of her newborn, with the caption 'Remind you of anyone?' Astonishingly crass. And the baby looked nothing like my friend's dead child.

MIL when one of my closest friends died in a shocking accident at 25 - 'you'll be able to laugh about this one day'.

But that is fine.

There are some truly heartless comments here, for which there's no excuse.

But many are at best clumsy but well-intentioned, or are a result of people not knowing what to say.

This from a child is fine. Maybe it's being Irish - we tend to be a lot more open & direct about death.

My in laws after my baby Son was stillborn:

‘are you enjoying your maternity leave?’ SIL

‘Bury it now’ MIL when trying to show her the few possessions we brought home in a special memory box. Unfortunate choice of words to say the least.

’Why aren’t you back in work yet?’ In other words ‘you don’t have a baby, why take the maternity leave?’ MIL again..

‘You can have another baby’ FIL

The week of our baby’s death PIL also badgered us relentlessly to do favours for their rude, lazy overgrown child of a daughter.

@LetHimHaveIt

That is beyond horrendous. Your poor poor friend 💔

Nearly everyone said ' Your joking' when my stepson died at 35. Of course we were.....funny wasn't it.

I agree

I went out with a now ex friend after my beautiful son died suddenly at 24. This was three months later and it was a big step meeting her. She barely mentioned my loss and started complaining about how her son’s work experience ( a runner in a film company) meant a long journey across London, and it was exhausting him. I snapped, ‘At least he is still alive’. We have not met since.

Close family member took his own life and I had a few people say along the lines of 'I was really depressed once, so I know how he felt'. Great, but did you take your own life?! or 'it's just awful, my DS used to be depressed, we all just had to really be there for him'. So... You think we are a bit shit as a family then?

My dad died aged 53 from bowel cancer, I had not long qualified as a nurse and had come home to look after him as I knew how much he hated hospitals and wanted to pass at home and knew my mum couldn’t cope. After he passed, my aunt and uncle came to see him before the undertaker came. I remember vividly my aunt kept talking about how long they were taking (we live two hours from the nearest city, there was no rush either) and kept calling my dad “the remains”. To this day I don’t know how I didn’t punch her in the face for calling my darling dad “the remains”. Lots of lessons learned for my nursing though and I think it’s helped make me a better nurse when looking after palliative patients.

Love this!
my 6yo made my mum a card when my dad died saying Happy Days!! in an attempt to “cheer her up”. It did. We all roared with laughter 😆

My Granny died in mid Dec 2020.
My Grandma (on the other side of the family) "At least she didn't die on christmas and ruin it for everyone. "

Did she attend X church?
No
Aww I guess you got to say your goodbye at the funeral (implying she won't be in heaven)

eh? you think one in one out and her ex telling her he will miss her more is OK?! You're on the wind up!

This is the worst one yet. :(

My Mum died of a really horrible cancer. She died at home. We had to get a GP out to certify her death and it was a locum as it was late at night. There was my poor mum, stick thin, bald and yellow lying dead in her bed and he said "has she been ill then?" 😒

When I miscarried after trying for years for a baby, a girl from the church I attended rang me up to tell me she had been praying and had a very special message for me.
The message was - A bad tree bears bad fruit.
I am no longer a Christian, but if hell exists I hope she rots in it.

Not exactly condolences but how’s this for inappropriate?
I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 62 when I told my uncle (80s) he said: “ I thought I would be the next to die!”
He was….

Not as crass as some of these but when my dad died very young, I was 14 and my brother was just 18. At his funeral, our (considerably) older cousin, hugged my brother and said ‘well, you’re the man of the house now’. He was just a kid and quite sensitive (and obviously grieving). I could have punched her! Thankfully, my very strong capable (but still grieving) mother heard her and said ‘he’s nothing of the sort, I’m still here to look after my children’.

Grief is grief.

My brother died very unexpectedly at 52, my DIL who had just given birth said "well never mind, we've got Susie now"

The day after my OH's father died (weeks after his mother died) our direct neighbour told him to cheer up, you'll soon be over it!