AIBU to think this is weird behaviour after a death?

[NoSoggyBottoms]

I know this is a sensitive subject and I totally get that we all grieve differently but I know someone who's dad has passed and she kept some of his beard hair on the mantelpiece with other things (photos, etc) like a little shrine. Is this weird or have you heard of similar things?

Not weird at all really. People keep all kinds of things. Whatever they can do to cope.

Yeah that's fair enough. I do understand that people need to do things to cope. Personally I find it weird but having to deal with a death of a close loved one can be devastating

Not can, is

I have some of my children's hair and also have areas in the house where some of their photos and things are.

I guess I'm weird too

Tradition going back centuries to keep the hair of the dead as a relic. Very prominent in victorian times with lots of death jewellery which was made from hair or included lockets of hair.

Not weird. Grief does weird things to people but this sounds relatively normal.

Nope not weird, my cousin kept some of my aunties hair when she passed of cancer. I thought it was a lovely keepsake for him.

Tbh it is a bit weird, but doing anything weird after a bereavement is incredibly normal.

I've got my Dads bus pass in my purse Everyone deals with grief differently- please don't judge.

I still have my nan's number saved in my phone, and all my text messages from a friend I lost a few years ago.
Had a cry when it looked like my new phone wasn't going to transfer them.

My brother died 14 years ago and I still have his mobile number in my phone, even though I've changed phones lots since then. I don't call it though, scared in case he answers

Nothing is weird when it comes to grief -unless you've grieved you'll never truly understand it.

I think that whilst grieving, anything the person does, thinks, feels or says is normal for them. Whatever gets you through the night as they say.

I am sorry but this comes into the "none of your business" category of life. As it does not affect you in any way I am a little curious as to why you thought it appropriate to post about it. Probably says more about you than them if I am being honest.

Grief is such a profound and bizarre experience. Keeping some of a loved one's beard is fairly tame!

I wear my Mum's wedding ring, along with my own (it didn't fit her for years, otherwise she'd have been buried with it)

When I bought a new address book I still transferred my mum's address to the new book even though she has been dead for years.

I have the last pj top my mum wore. It has a stain on the front and hasn't been washed in nearly 4 years. It's stuffed in the back of my wardrobe and sometimes I get it out to hold. I'm a weirdo.
Until you've experienced the stomach churning horror of grief you don't know what you'd do in those life crippling months afterwards.

So you recognise it is a sensitive subject but feel free to call tne bereaved and grieving 'weird.

I don't think it's unusual to keep hair although the beard seems more out of the ordinary. Usually a lock of head hair.

Maybe he didn't have head hair or he had a particularly memorable beard purple.

This isn't very nice thread. Surely it's obvious that people grieve differently.

I think you should let this person choose to grieve however they want to. It doesn't affect you and to call someone's grieving process "weird" is strange.

For many years after my mum died I kept her phone number in my phone - I couldn't bare to delete it.

Then one day my phone rang and it flashed up Mum calling. I nearly had a heart attack especially as it was late evening.

Turned out my dad had taken her old handset abroad on holiday instead of his fancy one and it was him.

It's funny now but by heck it didn't half give me a shock!

When my partner died, a friend said to me "Don't do anything weird like keeping a lock of her hair."

I did, as it happened. And his comment has stayed with me as one of the (many) insensitive things that were said to me at the time.

I also still carry our old house keys in my bag, five years later.

Grief is weird. Best not to judge.