To wonder why the cause of people’s death is so taboo

[Nursejackie1]

There are so many announcements of deaths on social media these days, many of young people often accompanied by photos and memories which are obviously heartbreaking. I just wonder why the death is usually announced without any explanation. And seems so inappropriate to ask what happened. Is it so taboo? I just find that there are so many posts like this and there seems to be such a silence around what happened like it’s disrespectful to give any insight into why. I hope I am not going to offend anyone here I just find it sad to be so invited emotionally into a lost life and human nature means you are going to purely internally speculate on what has happened to the person who has sadly died.

My dad died last year.
I dont know why but I think over the last year people are always asking if it was or not covid related.
He didn't die from covid.
A few weeks later there was a news report and my dad was featured on the local news about deaths during covid.
This was misunderstood and the local tv news reported my dad as dying from covid. He was a very prominent figure in the local community.
Obviously when your dad is on TV you have loads of people contacting you telling you your dad is on TV.
I didnt really care that it was being reported that he had died from covid but my sister was really angry. She contacted the newspaper and TV telling them they had made a mistake.
Again I thought she had overreacted and that in the end my dad had died and if it means other people are more careful with covid preventative methods then it's ok.
It was only afterwards when people started asking us why we had said he hadn't died from covid when in actual fact he had I started becoming annoyed.
Apparently because the TV news had reported he had died from covid it meant that we had lied or somehow tried to hide the circumstances about his death.
No, the TV report had taken a line from a newspaper and got it wrong. He had died during the Covid pandemic had been twisted to he had died from Covid.
In the end it doesnt really matter, my dad is still dead, but it did cause some upset when we were being questioned on why we had said he hadn't died from Covid when the news had told them he had.

I think it is completely normal when you hear that someone has died unexpectedly to wonder what they died of. I actually think it would be strange not to.

Obviously you don't ask the family, but if you know the deceased you will soon hear how they died. It just isn't customary to include the cause of death in the death notice.

I've always just had the impression that people post tributes without cause of death because everyone who is genuinely close to the deceased would already know the cause of death? So no need to mention in what is usually a post praising them and saying how much they'll be missed.

If you aren’t close enough to the family to already know the cause of death then you don’t need to know.

Grieving families don’t need to think about rubberneckers when they’re in the middle of sorting things.

It’s sad reading this thread.

The suspicion that people want to know the reason for a death because that are nosey (gossips?) is probably true in some cases.

Mainly I think also people are not ready to take on others grief on top of their own? So this leads to positive framing.

There’s part of me that feels sharing information can occasionally bring understanding and togetherness and allow support from others with similar experiences as I found when I was honest about my miscarriages and cancer. The local habit for illness /health events though is people will say oh so and so is ‘ is not so well today’ this can be anything from a hangover upwards!

I also found some people definitely did not want to hear about these things at all and for them they were taboo.

Horses for courses.

From my own social circle, I have seen posts about people losing loved ones from cancer, covid, heart attack and just recently a traffic accident where they briefly mentioned it. I understand why people would want to keep it themselves especially for deaths related to overdose or suicide. I also come from a culture where as soon as you hear the news, you are told the cause of the death. I don't particularly think it's being nosey (I don't ask though) I think it's more to do with the fact that people want to relate and somehow think it will make loved ones feel better talking about it. Then again, in my culture those that hear the news also attend the funeral where it is accepted that the more the merrier which also shows the family how much the deceased was loved and cared about.

The first time anyone I knew my own age died was a guy I had been dating a bit in my 20s who died in an RTA
His poor dad went through his phone and told all his friends.
Some people were honestly speculating at his wake about whether it was 'his fault'. I did find that disgusting. I can only think that it is this thing about 'if he was driving badly then I won't die because I am a good driver'. It does seem people need to defend themselves from their fear of death with this stuff otherwise it is a scary thought that this could happen to anyone.

It isn't mentioned firstly because it doesn't matter. The life is what people should be remembering, not the cause of death.

I must say I disagree. If a friend or colleague dies suddenly I absolutely want to know what happened to them. Similarly if I die tomorrow I don't want everyone to just be all zen and say "we will remember her life. It is not important why she died suddenly and unexpectedly."

When my sibling died we didn't actually say they killed themselves on FB but anyone who knew them would have known. I had a number of FB friend requests from people in the following days, I imagine they were hoping I had all the gossip on my page (they didn't send messages of condolences).

I think we're all curious when people pass away which is fine, but never ever ask.

[quote JorisBonson]@Sparklingbrook it's just weird. BUT HOW I MUST KNOW 🤦🏻‍♀️[/quote]
Having a tantrum to try and extract information from a grieving is never a good move. Grow up.

This thread has really made me think. If someone told me that a relative or friend had died I would always ask about it, but not from nosiness. My own df died young when I was a child, and I remember if it came up in conversation an absolutely horrified look would cross people’s faces, and there would always be such a horrendous awkwardness afterwards. Obviously I was devastated about losing ddad but I was rarely upset by speaking about him.

As a result, I tend to very deliberately try to not make things awkward by first expressing sorrow, then asking more about the situation. Perhaps that is the wrong thing to do in some cases.

I remember a friend of mine coming for a sleepover for the first time since ddad died. She couldn’t believe that we spoke about him and in one instance were in hysterics reminiscing about one of his funny habits. She had tiptoed around assuming that we would be too upset to mention it, which is very common.

My dm always ensured that we felt comfortable speaking about him, even if it did sometimes result in tears all round. Death is never something to be ashamed of. It happens to everyone eventually. And even if the cause was ‘self-inflicted’, the grief of the family and friends isn’t diminished.

@Souther that's a terrible story about your dad. You have my sympathy because my fil died in December from pneumonia after breaking his hip and being bedbound. Because he was old people automatically assumed it was covid (and the ones who assumed were the ones who were not close to us, so didn't know all the lead up to his death). I think what annoyed me most was that covid was somehow exciting, but a regular death was shoulder shrugging 'well he was old anyway' ordinary, and it would have been altogether a much sadder incident if it had been something currently newsworthy.

It is a cultural thing. I have only seen it in Britain. In other places they would talk about the cause openly, if embarrassing they would just say another thing (ie people dying of AIDS died of pneumonia or any other thing, suicide is a tricky one but people do not try to hide it as much as I’m here).

As in here.

Well if you know the person/family you would be privy to the whys or hows every body else it isn't our business is it.? I don't think it's taboo to ask privately what happened but people don't have to post it all over social media.

@diggetydoolittle my sarcasm obviously isn't translating 🙄

I also feel I have to add 'not from Covid' into any conversation where I am telling people about my mums death last year. Even people who know she had cancer seem to want to know if it was COVID that finished her off.
It is an odd one.
I don't feel terribly upset about them asking but I do wonder whether the 'right' answer is Covid or not Covid. Are they somehow disappointed she didn't die of this years must have illness?

I also feel a bit odd about how her death is seen as being a very sort of noble, respectable one. The classic 'peacefully with her family after a long battle with cancer' can be deployed and everyone knows what to say and do. I feel a bit guilty I guess that we can have that easy acceptance but my friends who died in less 'socially acceptable' ways have to struggle with how and what to say and peoples weird reactions.

Because if it's the type of death that will need an inquest (which younger peoples are much more often than older) there isn't a definite cause of death until the coronial process has been completed- which can take years. A pathologist may be able to give an assumed cause of death (e.g. head wound etc) but only the coroner can officially pronounce e.g suicide, death by misadventure or whatever. So the newspapers cant give it because it hasnt been confirmed.

I must admit that I kind of felt on social media when this happens it’s a bit like parents tagging themselves and their kids at the hospital with no explanation and causing worry and panic! (usually a minor injury which is revealed days later)

The death of a loved one is nothing like that OP.

If you needed to know, you would have been informed.

Having lost a young person in my life recently, the cause of their death is no one else's business. Their medical information is private, they were a very private person and I would feel like I were disrespecting them to post it all over social media. Those close to them know what they went through.

Because it’s private maybe?

Regardless of the cause of death, the last thing you want is people being nosey and asking the cause of death. If I wanted people to know then I would tell them myself.

Not taboo, just no one else's business. People have the right to keep what they like, personal. It's not their job to indulge nosey people with all the gory details.

If someone is reasonably young and healthy and dies, then you can easily work out that it was sudden and a big shock to the family. As others have suggested they might want to focus on the life of that person rather than how they died, particularly if it was quite an upsetting way of dying. It might be hard for them to share or they might not want other people to talk about what happened between themselves. A friend of mine had a relative who was murdered, and they didn’t share that in the obituary etc because they didn’t want neighbours etc gossiping about what happened.

I think regardless of the reason, if the family have omitted the cause then they have done it for their own reasons so it’s best to respect that.

I felt sorry for Nicholas Lyndhurst and his wife who lost their teenage son last year and who I gather are very private people but his wife recently had to elaborate on the cause of their sons death due to online rumours .