To think that bereavement has made me cold and lacking in compassion

[caramelswirl]

I was browsing through Facebook last night and one of my girls I knew at school had sadly lost her grandmother. Of course, I posted a brief message of condolence which was perfectly pleasant and fitting for the occasion.

However, the first thought that jumped into my mind was along the lines of surprise that someone my age still has a grandparent. Mine died very young, followed by both parents in my teens (separate occasions.)

To my shame, rather than sympathising with people who have lost their parent or grandparent, my instinctive thoughts often go along the lines that the person concerned should be grateful they had their for so many years longer than I did.

I should add, this isn't something I ever verbalise, which is possibly why I have 'owned up' on here, and I wonder if anyone else ever has similar thoughts which they suspect do not reflect particularly well on you as a person.

I feel this way too OP. In the last 8 years I have lost both parents and my sister. My children only have one grandparent and she is in a care home with dementia. I am sad for my kids that they have missed out on the love of grandparents and their aunt who adored them. I struggle with sympathising when I hear of people losing elderly grandparents - I know that doesn't make me a nice person but it's how I feel. I have spent a long time thinking about the 'what ifs' but I'm now working hard on counting my blessings and focussing on the 'what is'.

I don't think YABU. There is the grief we feel when someone we love dies, then there is the grief and anger we feel when somone dies young - anger and sorry that it just isn't fair.

My mum died in her mid 60's of cancer. She was too young but it seemed to make sense to a degree. I had often thought I was lucky to get to nearly 40 without somone really close (not grandparent) dying. I had friends who had been through many awful, way too young bereavements. Then someone I know's 7 yr old child was dying of cancer and I found it really hard to accept, I was so angry and in some ways angrier than when my mother died as it just seemed so unfair and cruel. I think it is different when a younger person dies rather than somone who managed to have children and grandchildren.

You have had a lot to deal with OP, don't be hard on yourself.

Yes don't be too hard on yourself, when my mother died suddenly I felt like my life had ended too, it's been almost 4 years but I still get really upset when others complain about their mothers, and I have trouble feeling compassion for others when they talk about grandparents passing away (all of my grandparents are dead as well). I'm ashamed of these feelings too but I think it's just part of the grieving process, give yourself some credit for all that you're dealing with!

Well kinda and kinda not.

It's perfectly reasonable to grieve for your loss and to feel jealous of others who haven't lost in the same way. Perfectly normal to wish things were different.

I lost my grandmother last week. She was 97 and had dementia and I didn't see her regularly, of course it wasn't the same kind of loss as say losing my mother (even now at 76) would be. However my cousin lived with her and she grieves for the loss of our grandmother as it has such a big affect on her life.

I don't think there is any rhyme or reason to grieving. As long as you don't verbalise how you feel to those freshly grieving then YADNBU

My reactions to finding out about a loss just brings me back to my own losses which really is hugely selfish. well thats kinda the nature of loss - part of the reason I find any funeral sad is that it reminds me of my own losses. Just because they are feelings focussed on you doesn't make them selfish - refusing to go to a funeral because you'd rather go bowling is selfish, going to a funeral and crying because it reminds you of losing your parents is IME perfectly normal.

OP I am in a similar situation to you and have always felt as you do. It's not something I would ever say out loud, but I feel guilty enough just for thinking it.

What I find the hardest is for those feelings to not turn me all bitter and twisted about the subject . I hope I'm not, but it's hard sometimes.

one of the life lessons is that we all die, and that in fact the death of someone at an advanced age, while sad, is not a tragedy.

of course that age is always 'much older than I am'.

I hope, OP,that the person concerned is indeed grateful for what they had for so long. And that everyone reading this who still has parents/grandparents stops and thinks.

I think that grief is not rational. My DD died five years ago and her loss has changed me forever. I do think about things very differently now (some good, some not so good). I would say that I am both more intolerant and less tolerant, depending on the situation. I suspect that makes no sense.

I have given up trying to rationalise how I feel as I never can. Like you Op, I try to not verbalise some of the less desirable stuff.

Gosh womaninwhite, I am sorry. How awful

Caramel, I just saw what you wrote about it being silly that you can't take a call from your parent. I don't think it is silly at all. I have both my parents (thankfully) but I can never have all of my children in one room. That has never happened as DD1 died before DD3 as born. I don't think it is silly that I wish that could happen or that I could take DD2 to school. You have been cheated and that is the case for many of us I think.

I have lost friends in their 20s/30s, parent in 50s, DH's mum and sibling were both in their 30s. So when my DGM died aged 93, although I was extremely sad, I didn't get that cheated emotion, and was entirely thankful for the length of her life and recovered much quicker.

For me there are fair deaths and unfair deaths. I have become cold in that I distinguish in that way. They are all sad but for me some are easier to deal with and when people say 'it doesn't matter how old someone was when they died, a deaths a death' I don't agree with them. In my head or out loud depending on the circs.

Someone whose first experience of losing someone is when their 85yo GP dies might feel very differently though.

I think it absolutely is that sense of being cheated, and I can really relate to that post.

People think the big things - Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, birthdays, are the 'triggers', but for me they are not. It is the small things - when a friend casually rings or texts a parent, a dad walking his daughter down the aisle, a mothers delight in her first grandchild. I'll never know any of that.

Losing a child is different again and I'm not even going to pretend to know how that feels your kindness in responding to this when you would be justified in saying 'some have it worse!' is a testament to you as a person. Thank you.

But it is all awful Caramel. I think you have had a tough time too. I think that we can all be hard on ourselves and I hope that being able to talk here is useful. Selfishly I find it helpful to hear other people feel the same way at at times.

Sounds like are needed for lots on this thread.

I don't think you are cold and lacking in compassion, I think it's simple jealousy. It's perfectly understandable. You clearly aren't lacking in compassion because you haven't said anything like "count yourself lucky" to the people concerned.

Caramel - I don't think you are either 'sillly' or 'cold' and I am so sorry for your loss. All your feelings are valid and understandable.

thewomaninwhite - I'm desperately sorry that you lost your daughter.

And yes to everyone on this thread who have lost love ones.

Yes, it really is jealousy! It actually helps just to call it that. I am incredibly jealous of those who have parents.

I have a brother with ads and supporting him alone and trying to lead my own life is such a struggle at times; it really is.

This thread is very interesting. Very sorry to those of you that have lost loved ones.

My parents are still alive but I'm not close to either of them, they have both been abusive and poor parents to varying degrees, one I haven't seen for years and I'm on the verge of cutting off from the other. I get very jealous of people with good relationships with their parents, especially adult women who are close to their mum. When people lose a beloved mum in her old age I feel such a mixture of things - so jealous that they had a decent mum to lose. So sad for them that they lost her and are in such pain when I could lose mine and it wouldn't have the same impact - it's unfair on them. Then sorry for myself in a childish way, that I have never had parents who really loved me. And then feeling annoyed with myself that that is my response to someone's loss - I feel so selfish.

But I suppose it does kind of make sense that someone else losing a parent throws your relationships with yours, or not, into sharp focus.

My dh died last March at 44 after a short, brutal illness. My mum died in Aug aged 79. My grief for each of them is so very different. The grief for my husband is still raw and painful and full of bitterness and anger at the world. The grief I feel for my mum is tempered with knowing she had a good and full life and is reunited with my dad. X

After numerous deaths in our family and losing countless dogs, I now feel numb and cannot empathise as I once did with the ill or bereaved although I do try to do this. Buried pain.

I have felt the same on many occasions since my DD2 died shortly after her birth. At her funeral I remember my overwhelming sadness that she wouldn't ever taste ice cream or feel the sunshine. I too have been very angry and a bit bitter that she was cheated out of a life and that DD1 forever knows that her sister, who she couldn't wait to meet, died. I am furious sometimes that her life was touched by this 'darkness' iukwim.

When I hear of old people dying (70+) I do think 'gosh they were lucky'.

I am in a similar position, and I feel the same as you - its entirely natural. My mum died when I was 13, 39 years ago this month, she was 54. (All grandparents long gone by then). I've grieved for her more as I've got older, and now my children grieve for her too as they have never had any loving grandparents, no siblings around. That's why my DCs' relationship with their godmother, my best friend, was so special, she was only 4 years older than me but it was enough to make her like a gran to them and they adored her. Apart from me and DH, she was the only person who truly loved them and it was in that magical unselfish grandparent type way that we all hope for. Then last May she died suddenly aged 56.

Cheated isn't the word. So not only I am devasted, DCs are too, I can watch them be in pain at the same time. Great.

I've got friends who have never lost anyone and have large loving families around them and you just think …. well, I don't know what to think really. However, all that aside I do believe there are different levels of grief and surely none can compare with losing a child. If a person lives into their 80s and beyond then surely you have to accept they had their normal lifespan?

I lost my dad to a nasty painful traumatic death from cancer when he was 63 and I was 35. I feel cheated! And I feel he was cheated too. I can't feel anything for people who boo hoo over distant relatives who pop their clogs in their sleep in their 90s. I also feel jealous when I see big happy extended families on holiday. My dad never got to meet his grand daughter or to find out i finally got my dream job (which was his dream for me too). I get cross when I come across miserable old people and think it's so unfair they are still around and my lovely dad who had so much still to give to the world and was an amazing mentor to me and many others is gone.irrational selfish and unfair but that's how I feel.

I feel exactly the same as you, having lost a parent in my twenties and my twin baby sons. I have actually deleted some of my husbands family on Facebook for excessive statements of grief about grandparents they never bothered with when they were alive. I just find it hard to muster the same degree of sympathy, particularly when so many lose their young spouses/ children.

Having just returned from a funeral this morning, it always gets you thinking again.
OP - you definitely aren't cold or lacking in compassion. I think you're feeling what most of us feel in some shape or form.

In an ideal (?) world, our bereavements would all follow a similar path ...... No-one would die tragically young, we'd all live a good, long, happy life. Thus, there'd be no perceivable differences in the suffering those of us left behind feel.

But, it's not like that, is it? My gran died just before Christmas, I was sad and grieving - but it was "worse" for my dad losing his mum. The funeral this morning was for the wife of an ex-colleague ..... She died reasonably young, the husband a bit older, her own mum still with us. The eulogy touched on the fact, DH expected to pre-decease her, as obviously did her mother. But, it wasn't to be. Upshot is, they're devastated understandably.

But, it serves no purposes to rank our grief publicly ..... Yet I suspect we're all a bit guilty of doing it privately. I will confess to having similar thoughts when there's a public figure's death reported, or closer to home someone posting on FB or similar.

I think it's totally understandable to feel jealous.

My dad died very suddenly when he was 68 and I was 39. It was the first time I'd lost someone I was really close to (didn't know my grandparents well), and I felt a bit guilty about the amount of grief I felt when so many of my friends had suffered crueller bereavements. But the suddenness was quite hard to take - I didn't get to say goodbye. And I think my mother feels jealous of older women who still have their husbands.

Bereavement involves a lot of powerful feelings and thoughts that we're not always proud of. I do feel grateful that I had nearly forty years with my dad, and also sad for those of my friends who didn't have the same thing. My sadness at the loss of my father can't ever be in the same category as someone who lost their parents very young. Still, I really miss him.

Can I just add to my comment above...I've not lost parents or siblings or children. I'm very lucky in that respect...but just as ToSea says my parents were pretty shit and I've gone through a hell of a lot of pain and bitterness over the years trying to cope with their inadequacies and selfish ways. I too am jealous of 'normal' parents, of women who have close relationships with their mothers... Not really making a point by the way. Just saying I understand ToSea's feelings.