to think the loss of my mum at 85 was tragic

[highho1]

Sorry this is a bit of a thread about a thread but it has got to me.
My mum died following a fall at 85. She may have only has a few more years left if she hadn't had the fall.
But at least than she would have possibly met her final grandchild. (My 3rd dd)
Aibu to think the loss of a older person can still be tragic.

So sorry about your mum,

Yes i agree , my Granddad was 86 , it was still tragic x

tunnocks

I think if you are devastated, distraught, feel cheated, you have every right to feel all those things. You get to feel however you want. I'm sorry for your loss.

But I do feel it's wrong to say it's tragic when an elderly person dies. To my mind certain words do have special meaning. It devalues them to use them inappropriately. A child dying is tragic, a person being murdered is tragic. We need to have a vocabulary for these things which are so shocking. It is natural that old people die. Without medicine, we wouldn't live to the age we do, it is not a right, it is a privilege. I will be devastated when my parents die, they are my parents. But I will not label it tragic, I will try to be glad they had such a good innings (but I do appreciate if someone has an awful death that must feel very hard to do. I don't want to minimise how grim some deaths are).

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm not sure that it's a tragedy when an elderly person dies but losing a parent at any age is devastating.

It's a great loss for you and your family - but I'm not sure I'd describe it as tragic. It's a death that has followed the natural order (albeit possibly a few years too early), but your grandmother has left no-one dependent on her (an assumption - apologies if wrong) - even though she has left people who will miss her terribly.

I have friends who have died leaving very young children, and friends who have lost young children & those are the deaths that I would describe as tragic. Not in a competitive - their grief is worth more - way but because they cause such havoc and there is nothing worse to my mind than seeing a mother bury their child. It's out of order and is a life cut many decades too short. Children are left behind who may grow up not remembering a parent, or remembering them but not having their input.

Death not being a tragedy doesn't mean you shouldn't grieve or feel the loss, but I do personally think there is comfort to be taken in someone having a whole life to look back on. At least I've always found that to be the case.

When I was 18 I attended two funerals in a week.

One was the funeral of my grandfather, who died at the not very old age of 71.

He died younger than he should have, but he had still had a reasonably long, successful and fulfilling life.

His children were devastated. His older grandchildren too. The smaller grandchildren were oblivious, but having them there made everyone smile and see that life went on.

A couple of days later I went to the funeral of a friend from primary school.

She had cancer all through her teens and died in her first year of college. Making it to college before she died had been an ambition of hers :(

At her funeral there could be no "a full life, well lived", there were no children or grandchildren to remember her years after she was gone. There were her utterly, utterly devastated parents and twin sister.

I shook my other friend, the twin of the deceased, by the hand and told her how sorry I was and I am haunted to this day by the look of complete emptiness in her eyes.

There was NOTHING, not a single happy thing to take away from her death. It was just completely awful, a young girl whose life had barely started dying of an awful illness.

It was way, WAY more sad than my grandfather's death. He had 70 years to make his impact on the world. She barely reached adulthood.

I lost my 95 year old Granny last year and I really miss her and am very sad at her loss.

But she was going to die at some point, she was very luck to live a long, happy and health life.

I think there is something kind of fucked up about trying to compare a death in old age like that to an awful early death.

I'm sorry for your loss highho1, and for all those on the thread who are bereaved or who are facing the death of a loved one.

It's always difficult I think discussing death and the feelings associated with loss and bereavement on an Internet forum. Words on a screen in this capacity often seem to run the risk of causing more hurt. When you are physically with someone who is grieving often the silences and your physical response to that person can convey so much more than what is actually said.

Unfortunately posting about grief in the AIBU topic is likely to bring out possibly the wrong sort of response to your very valid question OP. Because posters are already set up to provide you with a yes or no response, and some people fail to engage fingers before brain and realise that they need to tailor their response to by sympathetic and kind.

My opinion is that there is no right or wrong response to your question. Sometimes language, words, don't go far enough to explain the sensation of grief. How can they? I'm studying death and dying at the moment and this quote from my text book really hit me when I read this thread. "it is impossible for a person to fully communicate the experience of suffering in words. It is therefore impossible for a listener to understand"

highho, if your you tragic is a word that helps you to communicate your experience of the death of your mother then that is right for you. For others who have gone through similar it might not be, and that's OK too.

From a personal pov my father died last year after living with MS for over 20 years. His death was expected and he died a good death. For me, although the grief and loss were overwhelming at times and painful it was not a tragic death. MS was the tragedy in his life.
My mother, who is 70 is fit, well and extremely active. She has been released from the burden of caring for my father and has now started to really live her life again. If she died unexpectedly now I think yes, yes that might feel like a tragedy.

Im sorry for your loss and it must be heartbreaking for you and your family.

however, I dont believe it can be described as tragic and I agree with posters like minmooch who my heart just goes out to. My very healthy and fit brother died very suddenly in his mid twenties only a week after my father died, again out of the blue. My darling dad was only 60 and fit and healthy too but despite missing him like hell I would never think of his death as tragic.He got to live a full life, got married and had children (never got to see any grandchildren)

My brother however never got to get married, have children and was really just starting to make his mark in life. I cry for him everyday despite it being years later as I feel so cheated for him. To me tragic is a word to describe the death of a young person or perhaps those who die at the hands of another or from a horrific accident. Whilst grief is a personal thing I honestly dont believe people can really understand what it is like unless you have been through it in these circumstances.

So no, whilst awful for those involved I would never describe the death from natural causes of an elderly person as tragic. Truth be told the use of that word in that type of situation makes me cringe.

I don't know the thread you mentioned OP. Is there a debate about what age it becomes a 'tragedy'? Very emotive - and open to lots of interpretation. Language is like that.

I agree that something can be a personal tragedy - to you - like the death of your mother, OP , but that same event may not be viewed generally as an example of something 'tragic' by the majority.

The poster above mentioned going to 2 funerals within days of each other. Same experience here. I went to the funeral of a man in his 80s, then days later to the funeral of our niece - 18 months :( :( :( Totally different sentiments at the 2 gatherings.

My grandad died last summer aged 93. He was mistakenly prescribed penicillin to which he is allergic and this made him ill and gave him WW2 flashbacks. He had a heart attack a few weeks later after being hospitalized and then put in a home for respite. I expected him to be around for a few more years and was devastated that this silly mistake had taken him away from us before time. It still upsets me now 6 months on.

"I expected him to be around for a few more years and was devastated that this silly mistake had taken him away from us before time. It still upsets me now 6 months on."

I'm not surprised, that's really awful :(

I expected my Granny to live until 100, she was very well (for a 95 year old) and died very suddenly. So I did feel a little bit robbed.

But she just died suddenly because her body was old and frail.

That's very different from a preventable death that happened because of an error like that. It must be very difficult to come to terms with, particularly because it caused him so much distress.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

This thread is highlighting why it's a good idea to not say too much to people who are bereaved. I just say something heartfelt but simple, something along the lines that it is terribly sad news, that I am thinking of them, that X will be missed. etc etc.

I don't ever say I understand their grief, that the deceased had a good innings and I certainly never mention someone else who has died. I offer practical help if its applicable and tell people to let me know if they want to chat. I really try to follow people's leads as to what they want but it is difficult.

If you say much more you are at risk of saying the wrong thing. .

My friend lost her DH (in a tragic accident at a young age) - a shopkeeper said he knew exactly how she felt.
Really? she said.
I lost my Dog a few months back, he said.
Yeah, I suppose it was a tragedy to him. Hmm.

That was in agreement with WhenWhyWhere.

I don't think its a tragic loss no. Sad but not tragic

I've namechanged for this because I am ashamed of my own feelings and know that they are not appropriate but its how I feel.

When friends lose their mums, in their 70s or 80s I say all the right things to them, try to make sure I'm being supportive but in truth I'm jealous of them.
My mum died in her early 30s, I was only 6. It isn't an understatement to say that her death and the impact it had on my family have deeply affected me and still does now. I have now outlived her

She never got to run in the mums race on sports day, never saw me go to secondary school, or to university, never saw me graduate, never met my wonderful husband, never came to my wedding, never saw me pregnant, never held my beautiful children. She was my whole life and then she was gone and my siblings and I had to try to grown up to become the type of people we knew she would want us to be without her there to guide us or love us.

So whilst I feel sympathy when a friend loses an older parent, and I recognise that they may be utterly devastated, I don't see it as tragic.

Not that I have the monoploy on tragedy, a close friend recently lost her 16yo DD and I find that hard to even comprehend how she is coping.

I work in a Children's hospital so perhaps I'm more conditioned to the realities of life, but it has never occurred to me to think of anyone's death over the age of 70 as a tragedy. It's what we should expect should happen. Anything else is a gift. 1 in 3 people over the age of 60 actually have cancer, it's just most people never get to find out.

compo - my point is that grief isn't logical. My father died relatively young, and for some reason I didn't really grieve. My mother died when she was 90 and I went into meltdown.

Thanks, tbh I'm very ashamed of feeling jealous of others. I just feel envious of all the years they did have with their mum's.

My grandmother died at 84 and although it was sad I never really felt it was tragic. She'd suffered with ill health for many, many years and had done well to live as long as she did. When she passed we celebrated her life, and didn't really mourn. We've lost several family members at young ages, and these deaths really were horrible tragic. But my grandmother had lived a long and interesting life, she'd over come serious life threatening illnesses, she'd watched all her grand kids grow up. Even seen some of us have DC's of her own.

I wouldn't ever tell someone else how they should grieve a loved one, but I don't really think the natural death of an elderly person is tragic. IMO anyway.