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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Grief Grabbers-why do they do it?

300 replies

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 31/12/2018 09:40

There was a death in dh family just before Christmas, a much loved uncle passed away suddenly. Funeral was held a couple of days before Christmas.
At the afters of the funeral there was a screenshot of a post by someone who met this uncle maybe twice at the most (she married dh cousin and they moved away didn't keep in touch etc) being shown to family members. It basically said how am I going to get through Christmas knowing Uncle X is not here anymore. RIP I'm heartbroken.

She never even sent a card or came to the funeral. Just a rant.

OP posts:
alfiesmam · 01/01/2019 21:57

I call it “Mourn Porn “ Blush

LabradorMama · 01/01/2019 21:59

This happened at my mum’s funeral. Her side of the family - mother, sister and sister’s kids - turn up and sit in the front row bawling their eyes out.

She’d had cancer for 10 years and they had visited once.

Nettletheelf · 01/01/2019 22:29

Some shocking stories on here about behaviour at funerals. Awful for the families.

One step removed from funeral attendance, I feel a bit uncomfortable when people are queuing up to ostentatiously e.g. put bee stickers on their cars (after the Manchester arena bombing) or proclaim ‘Je suis Charlie’ etc. after public tragedies that don’t directly affect them.

Almost as if the only thing that matters is outward display of grief, and that’s how you identify yourself as a sensitive person of feeling. Lest there be any doubt. Because you couldn’t just quietly empathise, could you?

Worse, people who do this sort of thing tend to be aggressive towards those who don’t. I remember watching a documentary about the Diana madness in which the so-called ‘national mood’ was aptly described as a cross between a Disney film and Nazi Germany.

toffeeghirlinatwirl · 01/01/2019 22:31

Wow! Thought it was just me wading through this grief wankery.
My DSis took her life a few years ago. The story broke on the neighbourhood grapevine before the family was officially told, or indeed told at all in the case of her siblings and wider family.
By the following day, the fb grief spreaders couldn’t hold back from posting their “fly high with the angels, Hun”. The same friends, btw, who laughed at her behind her back. Before that first day was out, little children in my young niece’s class had known the “facts” so she had to be sat down (on FLO advice) to be told the grim details before some little shit did.
A just giving page went up, without our knowledge, that embarrassed my parents deeply, asking for donations to pay for the funeral. That was whipped down and replaced by a fund for her children.
The funeral arrangements were announced across fb within minutes of being finalised, again without our knowledge (leaked by friends). I was stood sobbing - and seething - in the middle of Next where I’d been trying on dresses for my dead sister’s funeral when my DSIL rang me crying to inform me that she’d read it on fb.
One of the biggest insults was from a so called friend of ds, who had been with DSis in her last hours but lied and squirmed from telling the family or police any info. In the time between the PM and funeral, this POS was out partying with her ‘besties’ and ‘having the time of her life’ splashed all over SM obviously. Her cover picture on fb is a collage of photos of her and my ds entitled ‘memories’. Every few weeks she throws up a photo or some inspirational meme for the hearts and hugs and u ok Hun?
Christmas and NYE were fucking excruciating as they are all at, including the school gate mothers who told their primary children how their classmate’s mummy died. I hate the lot of them.

Letsmoveondude · 01/01/2019 22:48

My family are like this. My mum would drag us to funerals of people we never met or hadn't ever been close to, or seen in absolute years, and there she would be howling about her loss, she always would end up in the front row, she would always bang on like her life would never be the same. I even saw her turn up at a funeral of a man she met 3 times, they weren't friends, and yet all of the family (except me) turned up and shrieked their way through the ceremony, she tried to get up and say some words, did all the tearful, no one had a bond like us sort of shit. They put up the ceremony booklets in each bedroom, the living room and kitchen, my sister's were going on about how much they loved him. A man they barely knew.

I'm NC with them, and DH is under strict instructions that should anything happen to me, however he can, they must not come to my funeral and make it a circus event. I'd prefer it to be just him and our DD than people with their faux grief.

katiescarlett1939 · 01/01/2019 23:04

@PepsiLola sadly, a similar story here! Two of DM's siblings did a charity race after she died, supposedly in DM's name. They had hardly bothered with her in the years when she was terminally ill?! Even got themselves in the newspaper.

I also have some relatives on the other side of the family who attend all distant relative funerals and sit near the front, sobbing more than the children/partners of the person who has died Hmm

Sb74 · 01/01/2019 23:06

That’s awful Spam. Your mum should have gone to support you!! Twat sounds about right tbh.

OVienna · 01/01/2019 23:15

toffee - so sorry you had to go through that

Charmatt · 01/01/2019 23:19

My OH had an upset employee ask for compassionate leave because his hamster died! Apparently, he couldn't see a way forward at that point in time.

castielchace · 01/01/2019 23:20

We have a neighbour who goes to every single funeral in our village,we live in a big village so the numbers are unfortunately high,it doesn't matter if they have never spoken to the deceased or even seen them...it's just there strange thing they do.The worst thing is they think it's acceptable,they came To my nans funeral a few years ago,stayed half an hour at the wake,ate as much as humanly possible & took two platters of food with them when they leftShockwe never said a word as my nan always said they was twats...made us smile to know she was always right about them Grin

GabsAlot · 01/01/2019 23:56

theres a name for it turning up at funerals and eateing the food-wa son the news cant remember where now some woman just looked up funerals and went to them to eat

castielchace · 02/01/2019 00:00

GabsAlot ....lol I can't believe it's anormal thing😀bit like wedding crashing,that's a sport in some countries to see how many you can attend!

Ruffina · 02/01/2019 00:12

There’s a sharp difference between people who get a morbid pleasure from the process and ceremony of mourning, and those who elbow themselves centre-stage.

I don’t mind the first lot. They may often be buffet guzzlers but they just treat the events semi-professionally.

The spotlight seekers are foul though.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 02/01/2019 00:31

”You aren't the arbiter of others grief.”

That is a wild and inaccurate generalisation @Pashal2 - I think it is perfectly reasonable, for example, to judge someone who rings up the widow of someone who has just died, and spend ages weeping and wailing on the phone, making it all about themselves without thinking about the feelings of the widow, or someone who announces a death on social media when it is definitely NOT your right or responsibility to do so, and when doing so means that people who were much closer than you to the deceased have to learn of their death on FaceBook or whatever, rather than being told in person.

I am not disputing the fact that people can and often are deeply moved by someone’s death - but you simply cannot be so selfish in your grief that you give their closest relatives and friends more grief and pain.

I have seen it described in terms of concentric circles. In the middle is the person who has died. The next circle out is most often their closest family - parents, spouse and children, then another circle comprising wider family and close friends, another that is less close friends, close work colleagues etc. Basically, the rule is that you should offer help and support inwards, and should expect help and support from further out. So, if a child dies, no-one should be depending on the child’s parents for support apart from their other children. Even grandparents are slightly further out in the circles, so should not be putting their grief and needs above those of the parents and other children. I hope this makes sense.

This doesn’t mean that there can’t be support flowing outwards, but it does mean that, if you are making your grief out to be soooo much greater and more important than the deceased person’s wife/child/parent and you are making them bear the burden of your grief instead of supporting them, you are being selfish and a grief thief, and I will judge that sort of selfish behaviour.

GunpowderGelatine · 02/01/2019 00:31

It's bloody awful OP, my niece found out her own grandad died from Facebook FFS when an (adult) cousin, who happened to have been called first, posted within 2 minutes about it. Dick Angry

GunpowderGelatine · 02/01/2019 00:34

I also saw a picture the other day from a young colleague (early 20s) of her holding her grandmas hand (which had a cannula in so clearly in hospital) with "saying goodbye to grandma, hopefully not for the last time"...sorry but WTF, does this poor lady know you're using her illness to get attention on social media?!

GunpowderGelatine · 02/01/2019 00:36

My OH had an upset employee ask for compassionate leave because his hamster died! Apparently, he couldn't see a way forward at that point in time

😂😂😂😂😂

What a way to lose your boss's respect

Gwenhwyfar · 02/01/2019 00:36

Maybe we should bring back the job of professional mourners, considering people used to be paid to cry for strangers.

DeusEx · 02/01/2019 00:41

@toffeeghirlinatwirl I am so sorry, that sounds awful. I am so sorry that happened to you.

My sister is the grief police. Centre stage and no one has ever known the deceased as well as her or been as sad as her. It is so awful. Glad I’m not alone in this frustration!

Banana1979 · 02/01/2019 01:09

I did not swear at op if i did i would not have wondered why the post was deleted. I said what the f. That's all i said. Plenty of others swearing on here using the full word as usual
As for my comment i stand by it. As someone else said op has no right to comment on someone's grief or how they grieve and has assumed her uncle and the person she is posting about had no relationship when the op has no proof they didn't
Strange how you remember my post but didn't report it..not that im bothered it was taken down as i rewrote it.

Banana1979 · 02/01/2019 01:12

@tabbymumz

MissLanesAmericanCousin · 02/01/2019 01:18

I call those people funeral or catastrophe chasers. A similar thing happened to me when my Dad dies. One of my colleagues decided to show up to his funeral. We couldn't stand each other and she never met my father. She cried through the whole thing. It was the phoniest thing I've ever seen and it made me angry. Some people just like drama and they're just plain attention seeking dicks. Don't let this idiots actions taint your uncles funeral. Just breathe deep, ands let it go. I'm so sorry for your loss. Flowers

Lucia201837 · 02/01/2019 01:28

Sounds like she’s an attention seeker!

MissLanesAmericanCousin · 02/01/2019 01:43

@Luci201837, Sounds like she’s an attention seeker!

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!

Claudia1980 · 02/01/2019 01:50

They do it for attention. Just like everything else on Facebook. Examples: the wife proclaiming to FB happy birthday to the best husband, best friend, dad etc. reality: husband is a lazy idiot, they are always fighting and she’s considering divorce. Facebook is a total farce.