To think my uncle was rude to my gran, when she was crying about her late husband

[diamondlizard]

Gran lost grandad last summer
She's up and down of course but taking it quite well considering he was her constant companion

Anyway when ever she gets upset her two sons, tell her
Come on don't upset yourself
Be strong
Words to that effect

It just seems mean to me that they don't let her get it out

I tell her not to bottle it all up a it will make her ill

I think they are pretty selfish tbh as they just don't want to hear it
They are so cold towards her

Then his week uncle phone her and she was already in tears, as she had been in ht shed and was thinking of grandad
Uncle said to her oh what's up

She said thinking about your dad and missing him

Uncle replied, do you want to me phone back later

I think he just doesn't know how to respond, what to say.
I'm pretty sure he's not meaning to be rude (although you know him better than me).
Sorry for the loss of your Grandfather.

It sounds like they're unable to cope with their own feelings about him, so they're trying to brush off your Gran's too. It's pretty unkind of them but I can kind of understand that they aren't able to cope either. As long as your Gran is getting cuddles and understanding from you or from someone else then she knows she has someone to turn to.

In all honesty I really don't think it's because they can't cope with their own emotions
I really think they are just being selfish and don't want to hear it

I don't mean this unkindly, and I may well be off the mark, but was your gran v emotionally demanding before your grandpa died. Sometimes if you've been supporting someone emotionally over what seem like little things, there just isn't enough left for the big things.

If that's not the case, they sound insensitive, but I guess they're missing their Dad too.

Well it's a good point at least she had some people to talk to

Like me :)
And others

Guess that's the main thing

No I don't think she was emotially demanding before losing grandad

They stuck together and muddle through between them
And she really misses him

People deal with grief differently.
When she said she'd been thinking about her husband, perhaps her son didn't want to intrude on her grief.
Perhaps he is insensitive.
Your Gran has lost her life partner.
Your Uncle has lost his Dad.

It's a different relationship, equally painful and valid. But he means different things to them.

I expect he's cursing himself now,

That's very sad . She must be so pleased she has you then.

Grief is the worst pain there is. If somebody hasn't ever lost a person who they were very close to, it's difficult to comprehend just how bad that pain is. Some people are just emotionally shallow and can't empathise with another person. It takes maturity and intelligence and perhaps they just don't have this.

People also expect older people to just get on with it and accept it as part of growing older. It's not until they're old themselves that they realise that age is just a number and that older people do still have feelings.

She said to me this week, thanks for being you, and that I make a lovely mum

I think she feels able to talk to me
Which is good

My DM lost her DBrother last year. It was very sudden, he was only 46. Bit of a black sheep, but mum was very upset. My dad's reaction? "Sure he didn't have much of a life anyway, always fucking things up..". Luckily mum managed to tell him to fuck off through her tears.

I later asked why he thought this was an appropriate line of conversation and he said that when she's upset he doesn't know what to say to make her feel better, and he was grasping at straws(!). If your uncles are like my dad and want to "fix" it but know they can't, then it can be very difficult to think of a response. This is compounded if you're hearing it again and again.

Awww, sorry to hear of the loss of your grandad, and of the reaction of some family members.

I have a husband who can be rather like this. He doesn't mean to be insensitive, but he just cannot comfortably handle things like this. He can show empathy for a while, but when it is a situation like this which is not quickly resolved and "back to normal" then he has no idea what to do. He wants to mentally ring-fence it and put it into its box and he just cannot fathom why it won't yet go.

Ten years ago, when his dad had only been dead about 6 months, hubby simply couldn't understand why his mum was still so raw about it (they had been married for over 40 years). He told me that he thought he should now tell her to snap out of it, because it had been 6 months now and that was surely long enough in his view. He was already "putting it in its box" mentally, but my jaw dropped. I gave him rather a talking to, and he did not say anything untoward to his mum.

In fairness, it can be rather difficult to know what to say to a bereaved person because we all deal with it differently, but I do wonder if this sort of reaction is more common from males. Not saying every male, mind.