AIBU to not grasp some kinds of grief?

[lizzieoak]

I'm curious about what upsets people when famous people die? As an example, I was a massive fan of Amy Winehouse & I was sad when she died. Primarily thought "oh, how sad for her poor family" & a little bit thought (& still think) "how sad for people who loved her writing & voice that it's all ended so soon."

But, horrible monster that I am, I didn't cry, as I didn't know her personally and, sadly, it was hardly a huge surprise. Ditto the death of our treasured Mr Cohen. He was 82.

On the non-famous end, while I was sad when my dad died when I was in my 20's, I thought "well, today I'm sad, but in a year I bet days will pass when I don't even think of dad". A friend of mine had a parent die around the same age and he spends the whole month, every year, 30 years later, being Quite Upset. Slight difference in the manner of our parent's deaths as my dad had been sick on & off since I was a kid whereas my friend's mum died of cancer within a year of getting ill.

I totally grasp that a loss of a child could destroy a person. It's out of the natural order of things. And the loss of a spouse - I can see how that could be pretty devastating.

But I worry a bit that I feel sad but not grief-stricken about the loss of people I love (older adult family members thus far) & people whose work I've admired.

Is it just that I'm a cold fish in this regard? Can anyone upended by the death of an elderly person, or Princess Diana, explain to me ... well, just what it is they're upset about?

Hard to convey tone online sometimes, but I'm not being sarkie, I really don't grasp this (though am otherwise emotionally normal).

Anecdotally, my male friends seem more thrown by the death of elderly rellies, whereas women seem more emotional than men are by the death of famous people. Not necessarily true across society, but in my circle I've noticed this.

There are hierarchies but these are not universal, usually they socially constructed and situated according to place/culture. For example in western society most people would put losing a child at the top (most painful) and perhaps a goldfish at the bottom. I doubt many would argue with that. The middle could be contentious, some may feel more grief at the death of a sibling/grandparent than their husband.

In sub Saharan Africa the loss of livestock could cause more grief than losing a child. Losing your great-great uncle who was the head of the tribe may be higher up on the hierarchy than losing your wife or mother. It is usually relative to the individual but social context often plays a part.

Grief isn't something you can practise, so you may not know how you feel until it happens. Many people seek grief counselling because they fear they are not grieving "appropriately" and they are trying to search why.

In sub Saharan Africa the loss of livestock could cause more grief than losing a child I don't think I really believe that. It sounds like the finding of some white anthropologist observing behaviours and entirely failing to understand.

I think in every culture losing a child is worst. It is the death of future and hope.

I grew up in sub Saharan Africa, and I don't mean South Africa. I can assure you that the loss of livestock would not cause someone more grief than losing a child.
I can't believe I actually had cause to type that sentence.

I was shocked when a colleague took a week off because her horse died. When my gran was dying and I took time off, it caused all sorts of unhappiness with work yet this colleague got more sympathy than I did!

I heard someone on the radio years ago say that we should never minimise another's pain. I try to remember this.
I have friend who still mourns her mother many years on, and her mother's birthday, the anniversary of her death and Christmas are all incredibly hard for her. I accept that this is just how my friend is.
I don't understand why people were so upset about Diana either, although I was surprised at how sad I was when Victoria Wood and Terry Wogan died.
Everyone experiences grief in their own way I think.

Toast apologies if I have offended, this is what we were taught! Within the context of not applying the "typical" western social model to other cultures.

I certainly get feeling sad when celebrities die. I was very sad to hear about Alan Rickman and Victoria Wood as well as others. But shrieking howling public grief I do not get. Still, each to their own!

When I lost DM I was shocked by the fact that grief is so non-linear. There is no neat progression of agony to anger to sorrow to acceptance to healing. Just a complete exhausting mess of cyclical emotions churning round like a washing machine. I never knew it was possible to go from laughing to rage to devastation to guilt for laughing to resignation and back to sorrow in the space of about ten minutes before!

My mother was devastated at the loss of one of our family dogs. He was young and totally devoted to her and she drove him for hours to a specialist vet school to try and save him. She told me that she was more upset at the time and grieved for longer than she did for her mother, who died a few years earlier and with whom she had a bit of a difficult relationship. For her the standard hierarchy of grief just didn't fit. The dog was her shadow and left a much more obvious gap in her life. Now since then she has loved two more dogs, so the grief was transient in a way. Perhaps that made it easier to feel? We're a horribly stiff upper lip family, perhaps that has led to more internal permission to grieve for a pet than a person?

The funeral for my niece who died very young was uplifting, with pop music and no black to be worn, but her family also ululated, sharing their grief very nakedly. When my father died there was very little crying, and my lovely SIL worried that it wasn't right, but she comes from a different culture again. I didn't really cry and keep expecting grief to hit me, but just because it hasn't (yet perhaps) doesn't mean I didn't adore my father.

Grief just is I think, it's not very controllable, you just feel how you feel.

My mother was devastated at the loss of one of our family dogs. He was young and totally devoted to her and she drove him for hours to a specialist vet school to try and save him. She told me that she was more upset at the time and grieved for longer than she did for her mother, who died a few years earlier and with whom she had a bit of a difficult relationship. For her the standard hierarchy of grief just didn't fit.

As a dog owner, I can imagine that the death of a young, devoted dog would be more distressing than the death of a parent. I'm not close to my parents, but they're both alive, so I can only speculate. I'm kind of damaged in this way, so I couldn't make a reasonable judgement.

The death of a child stands alone at the top of the hierarchy, and nothing compares. I find it distasteful when people have had miscarriages (which I have, and it was tough, but it was manageable) and they equate the two. I have a dear childhood friend who has a child with an inoperable brain tumour and the weight she carries is unspeakable.

In sub Saharan Africa the loss of livestock could cause more grief than losing a child

How crass.

Some of what has been mentioned relates to the complicated grief of losing someone with whom you've had a difficult relationship

The expression of grief may be great, because with the loss of that person comes the loss of any chance to heal something

Or people may feel very conflicted about grieving someone who they did not have everwhelmingly positive feelings of love about

As a dog owner, I can imagine that the death of a young, devoted dog would be more distressing than the death of a parent.

I can't.

Some people see their dogs as truly their best friends. I can imagine the loss hitting harder than the death of a parent, but only if some of the grieving for that parent had been done previously (because it was never the relationship you wanted or perhaps because they hadn't been 'themselves' for a long time).

A close family member had a borderline miscarriage/still birth. She has never got over it and I honestly don't think it would have been harder if she had known the little one. It would have been different. Just different.

That's the point, isn't it navy. None of us can know what it's like for the other person. That's my feeling but it is based on the awareness that I can't know it would have been harder for my relative if the child had lived for a time. I do know that the grief destroyed her life in a different way. Not having anything tangible to grieve served to crystallise it, preventing it from going through any process of healing. It' probably wasn't the most run-of-the-mill experience of this type. But neither of us are in any position to decide that my relative would have suffered less or grieved her daughter less in different circumstances. Given the far-reaching, long-lasting impact of her grief (and I have had a lifetime to reflect on this), I hold the opinion I do but I can't know it and with respect, neither can you.

I believe some deaths impact our lives in a different way the death of a child or young children losing a parent has can have an impact on life as a whole and on relationships we form rather than losing someone and deeply missing them and feeling terribly terribly sad

I understand that navy and my only point was that we really can't diminish any loss relative to another (within reason) or order it on a scale for anyone except ourselves and perhaps those we know really well.

enthusiasm I think I know what you mean. Some losses (those in the immediate family?) affect who we are and everything we do. It's life altering. A bereaved sibling said to me recently, 'It's as if the sky is red.' Whereas other losses don't necessarily hurt that much less, but affect the reality of our lives much less.

Sorry but I'm with Navyandwhite re the two examples being like two different planets. We've experience suicide as a family and it is truly dreadful for so many complex reasons.

Slender, to me the difference is partly that w a miscarriage you are losing an idea, with the death of a child you are losing a person. Not to diminish the sadness of miscarriage, but having been pregnant w 2 I know how the bonding changes when you meet the baby, get to know them, etc.

navy It wasn't my intention to hurt you and I apologise for that. As I saw, it we were having a conversation about grieving in a theoretical sort of way, but I was aware that the life circumstances of most people who had contributed, yourself particularly, were caught up in our responses and it was probably too delicate to pursue further.

The bonding process does of course deeply change your relationship to a child.

I don't think it's helpful to try to justify how a still birth (as I think it would be considered today) could be as significant in a person's life as the loss of a child who was here longer and known. So I can only say that if you knew my relative and knew what the loss of the child had done to her when she had not been able to enjoy even one day of holding her, it would be hard to think of anything that could have hurt her more. It was especially difficult because society wrote off her agony as 'just another miscarriage'. It wasn't. She lost a child who would never be replaced (and was never replaced) and who lies in a grave that is still visited, but perhaps that isn't always the case for women going through it and I'm not saying it would be a similar experience to lose an older child - just different. However, these are all different shades of agony and all we can or should do is try to help each other through, not judge.

With respect slender, you have observed your relative's grief, but not experienced it yourself. You are engaging with people on this thread who have actually lost a child, not just observed that grief. I do think it is important to keep that distinction in mind and perhaps reflect that if your views are not based on personal experience of your child's death, they really do not have the same weight as those of someone who is actually walking that hard cold lonely road everyday.

Deep love and respect to all my fellow bereaved parents out there

With respect what, I have expressed my views very respectfully to people who have chosen to discuss grief on a public forum (not in a bereavement section). If you want to report something or can pinpoint anything I've said that belittles the grief of others, go ahead, but it's not your place to close down dialogue otherwise. I was simply responding to the misconception that no one who suffers a miscarriage or still birth has really 'lost a child', which I personally found crass and deeply inappropriate.

I grew up hearing people saying to this relative, 'But at least she died young before you knew her.' It was based on a misconception. The reality was that my relative would have done anything to have had just one day with her daughter. Being able to care for her would have no doubt have increased her sense of loss in some ways. But it would, without question, have also consoled her. I don't know what the net result would have been but there is no place for any of us to look at another and say, 'I know what you've gone through and it's not as bad.'

I'm not saying one grief is greater or that both are the same. Simply that they are different and specific to each person. I am terribly sorry you have been bereaved in such a dreadful way. But you don't know what I have gone through, either.