Deceased loved ones to think “ they would have been this age today” or to remember as they were ?

[dontfollowmeimlosttoo]

So I just wondered if anyone else does this / family does this
My mum’s mum passed away when she was just 56, my mum text me saying my lovely mum would have been 90 today .. I get yearly updates about most family members that we have lost but mainly her mum and dad ...

My own dad passed away a few years ago aged 53 but I find it too painful to say this year he would have been 54 this year 55 etc. I feel in doing so I would just be torturing myself and thinking what could have been / what I have been “ robbed of “ so to speak.

I know someone who does this who is ages 84 and often will say well my dad would have been 120 now .. is this a generation thing , do many people do this as a comfort or are any others like myself and don’t like to think ok today would have been my dads 56th birthday and try and imagine what he would look like ( my mum does this wonder what she would be like now etc ) maybe it helps with grief I don’t know

Would be interesting to know other people’s views on this

I was thinking this the other day, and wondering when it would end: a friend posted on Facebook about her mum who would have been mid 80s, and died some 10 years ago. I was wondering how she is going to find the cut off point, 100? 99?

I don't know why they do, but each to their own I think. Grief is such an odd thing. My very, very close friend passed away 4 years ago on Tuesday, an absolutely devastating loss for me. The same friend that posted about her mum posted about that too, with seemingly little regard to how anyone else would feel, which is an aspect of it that annoys me. I don't have the monopoly though on how to react, no matter how odd I find it :/

It's not the way I choose to remember them but it obviously works for some people :/

I personally find this quite morbid but then I don’t know whether some people find it comforting and a way of helping with grief

I have to stop and really think about how old my mum is now and she is still alive!

My dad I remember and know how old he would be now as he was exactly 30 years older than me so easy to remember, doubt I would know otherwise.

I do it a bit, mostly with people who died "too early", IYSWIM.

Not with my granddad, who died at 95, he wouldn't "be 105" now, because if he hadn't died 10 years ago he would almost definitely have died since.

But my MIL died in her 50s, and sometimes when I think of the time with her that we were robbed of, I think "she would only be 63 now". She probably wouldn't have changed much. etc
I don't like to think about it, really, but I think it's natural to sometimes. Less so outside of a "normal" life expectancy.

@domton yes it does make you think when will it end .. I haven’t responded to my mum because I never know what to keep saying . I think I will just say thinking of you etc . For me personally I would find it so painstaking to think ok how old would my dad have been and then acknowledge that age and acknowledge he isn’t here for that celebration birthday . Maybe I prefer to be in denial

I had a brother who died when he was 19, I was 18. I never think about how old he would be now. He's frozen in my mind as the last time I saw him, he's still 19 to me. Obviously it's very easy for me to work out how old he would be, I just need to add 18 months to my age. My father used to imagine how old he would be, he'll never age for me.

I am 30 years old and my mums mum passed away a few years before I was born.. so for 30 years of my life I have had every year “ my mum would have been such and such have today” and then she has continued to do it when my grandad died and now my dad. I just prefer not not to be informed

Don’t mean that in a harsh way I just prefer to think that time has frozen because it is too painful to picture them aged and what we have missed out on.. i just find it a little too much.

I find myself saying it about when DM died and it will be 20 years ago this year. Part of it is that her death was a shock (an accident) and part of it is that I can't believe that it has been that long, because quite often is seems as though she died just yesterday. I am not wallowing in grief, I have a good, happy life with plenty going on, but on that day, I find her loss unbearable.

DF died 9 years ago and I don't do the same thing with him. But then, he was a nasty, foul-mouthed, cruel little old man that I no longer liked after 2 long years of illness and sadly I don't miss him at all.

I don't do it with anyone except my brother. The year he would have been 60 was quite painful. Thing is you can't control the way you think and we all deal with grief differently.

It’s a hard one. My sister died when I was 13 and she was 16. Every now or then usually when I’ve had a big birthday I think about how old she’d be.

I found it harder when I got married and had my children. Would she have been married with kids? It’s more a “what if” thought.

My husband died too early. When he was diagnosed he really wanted to last until his 60th birthday but died 6 weeks shy of it. I celebrated his birthday for him and I will celebrate each of his birthdays without him. Not by a big party but a family meal, a toast to him and who he left behind and I plant a rose in my rose garden.

It brings us comfort and it is a time we can use to remember and chat about the good times rather than just the last couple of pain filed months of his life.

DDs friend did this in the car one day (she was 8 or so at the time) and told me her granny was 112 (or some other equally implausible age for an Irish woman anyway). Turns out she's dead 30 years.

My mum died aged 63. She was the same age as my dad so I supposed that I'm always aware that had she lived she would be his age. But I never comment on it or even consciously consider it. And nor has anyone mentioned it to me. I have no idea what age my grandparents would be if they were still alive. Never worked it out. What does it matter? They're not here. To me it would be no different to me saying that if I'd been born in 1957 I'd be 61. So what?

The only context where this makes sense to me is that a parent would always be aware of how old their child would have been if they had lived. But I would think it truly awful for anyone else to point it out to them.

I wonder is it a thing that makes some sense when someone has died young?

My husband died when he was 50. Would have been 58 this year. I never really think about it. Sometimes I think about how old my grandparents would be now though. It's funny. I love playing with numbers and dates (drives my current boyfriend mad) so that may account for it.

My Mother (61) and her siblings do this on FB about their deceased Mother. It makes me sad and uncomfortable seeing it. She died a horrible death, I don't want to be reminded of the what ifs.

My younger brother died a few years back when he was 28 and in my head he'll always be 28.
I never do the "he'll be [x] years old" because I just don't really think like that. I do sometimes dwell sadly on the fact he and his wife would more than likely have had a couple of kids, I would have other nieces or nephews. It makes me so sad that they never got the chance to have a family together.

Sometimes I do think about my nana though, she was just shy of her 69th birthday when she died (I was 16). But I only think that because my mum is turning 69 in April and I wonder if my kids and niece look at my mum they way I looked at my nana, who I thought was old but not elderly.

I don't think about how old my father would be.

DH marks each birthday of his parents with my mum/dad would be X today.

He went through the whole spin cycle of grief and got all the way to acceptance without too many hitches. My dial is stuck on denial. But I doubt that is connected to how we mark/don't mark milestones that never were. In the sense that I don't believe I'd get magically unstuck if I marked my father's birthdays.

I don't think there is a right, or wrong way. It just is. He doesn't push me to mark dates. I listen when he does. Grief rumbles on with the passing of time, and people deal with it differently.

Its my dds 8th birthday next week, we will have a cake at tea time, but she will be forever 3 as that is how old she was when she died. I sometimes say how old my dd should be but i cant visualise her at that age because she never was, i certainly dont look at 8 year old girls and think 'oh dd would be doing that now' as it feels strange/wrong. To me she is still the little girl running into nursery in a rapunzel dress and that is how i will see her till the end of my days.

I do remember the birthdays of family members and how old they would have been, but I don't share it with anyone else.

My Dad died when he was 67 and I do think of him on his birthday because he would be 82 now - which seems an almost incredible and ancient age! (Even though my DM is not far off that and still going strong.) I don’t do it for grandparents etc. I think it is because my friends have parents who are the same age that he would be IYSWIM but my Dad is frozen in time in reality.

My dear friend who died at 54 is always that age when’s I think of him regardless of the few years that have passed.

I sometimes think it as dp died when he was 24 in an accident and I was 23.
Our ds will be 31 this year so it s weird to think he's older than his df ever was.
He was 6 months older than me (in sixth form together) so I do think of it sometimes.

@Phillipa12 my goodness how awful. Bought a tear to my eye. So sorry for your loss and the loss of all the other posters. This post just really stands out because I have a daughter the same age and find it so wrong to bury a child. I could never imagine what it must be like. I can only remember the age they were. A friend of mine committed suicide at 16 and could never imagine them at my age (nearly 26).

My best friend died last year and it was her birthday the other day and I thought happy birthday but not anything about how old she would have been. To me she will always be the age she was when she died. But if it brings people comfort to imagine people aging then I say let them crack on.

My brother died when he was 23, so I remember him as he was then. When it would have been his 40th I did wonder what he would have been like, would be doing etc, but I don't think of it every year.

One thing I found hard was seeing his friends start having families. He'd wanted kids, so it made me sad that I'd never be an auntie.