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.

In Ireland, people would know through word of mouth how someone died, but regardless of how they died it would never be written down. The closest might be something like " died peacefully at home surrounded by family" or "died at x hospital following a short illness" or "died suddenly".
When you go to the wake or funeral you'll hear or when you are talking and sympathising with the family.

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)

That’s the most stupid, and nastiest, comparison I’ve ever seen.

Comparing someone who has lost a loved one to a drama llama. How insulting are you?!

It's a strange one for me.

My mum died very suddenly and unexpectedly (she collapsed at home and was never revived) so we didn't know what she had died of.

When I told people, I merely said "my mum has just died very suddenly" (or something along those lines). She wasn't elderly [65] or ill but people seemed to know it wasn't anything untoward?

People did ask - the main response was "what happened?". In fact I think everyone I messaged or contacted asked this question. I wasn't offended at all.

However I don't use social media so there was no announcement of death and I can only go by my own experience. We didn't know why mum died (heart failure / recorded as natural in the end) but I assume if it had been an illness most people I told of her death would have known she was ill? And if it had been an accident I'd have said that?

I do think its human nature to want that knowledge / closure but depends on lots of things.

My best friend messaging me and saying "oh my fucking God, what happened, are you all ok?" Is very different to the neighbour who stopped me before the undertakers had even taken mum's body and asked me what had happened..... she got told very impolitely that I was busy dealing with the undertakers so I didn't have time to talk.

I know I'd have had zero tolerance for someone I went to school with two decades ago asking "oh no hun, what happened to your mum?".

@JustLyra

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)

That’s the most stupid, and nastiest, comparison I’ve ever seen.

Comparing someone who has lost a loved one to a drama llama. How insulting are you?!

More like vague booking i think she means?

IN due course it is a matter of public record. I have bought birth and death certs for my 40 great aunts and uncles and death certs of all direct ancestors back to 1837 so can tell you how all of them are described as dying on the cert. Mostly the doctors give one or two reasons. It is quite interesting to see how the terms are used.

@LunaMay Yes, comparing someone not specifying how their loved one died in an announcement to a drama llama vague booker is just ridiculous and rude.

[quote JorisBonson]@diggetydoolittle my sarcasm obviously isn't translating 🙄[/quote]
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Some families feel a lot of shame even denial when it comes to things like suicide. I had a friend who took his own life but his family still refers to it as "the accident" so there was no way they were going to put it on his death notice

My sister died in a horrible way when she was 20 and even now 18 yrs later I avoid mentioning her cause of death. It feels awkward and I hate the way people react when they find out. I’d rather people picture it a peaceful passing than imagining what really happened. It just feels like the least I could do in her memory as I know she would not like that kind of attention.

@SylviasMotherSaid

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 .

I agree, although we had such a lot of sadness and questions in our household about his death (my kids love so awkward) so it helped to know what it was. I think as a parent you do care about what happens to other people’s children, not to be morbid but to understand and never to take things for granted.

High profile cases of rare illnesses in children do sometimes help raise awareness such as meningitis, sepsis or air quality for example.

I feel so desperately sad for them.

@greyballoo

Family would feel like there's something they should have done or prevented. Especially suicide or addiction it must be torture thinking you should have noticed something.

There isn't always something to see or to notice before it happens. It can just happen with no warning, no signs and from nowhere. And yes, it is torture, even when hand on heart you couldn't have done anything differently. Yet people looking in make assumptions and comments like this, which honestly make it so much harder.

In answer to the thread, not everyone wants to announce their private business to the world. That's okay.

I don't think it's taboo as such but I do think it's a bit distasteful to hear of someone's passing and immediately want to know the gory details. I know that asking "OMG what happened?!" isn't quite that, but it does feel a bit like that and I don't feel comfortable asking if someone doesn't want to say.

It is shocking when a young person dies regardless of the cause.

Funny I was just having this conversation with my mum the other day.

A family acquaintance died, she was young and as far as we knew hadn't been ill. Her death was announced on Facebook with a long gushing post all about her life, but no mention of what she died of.
[I've subsequently been told it was related to a heart condition, so it wasn't that it was kept secret as 'taboo' or because it was suicide or something like that].

A few days later my mum had found a box of my Nan's things when sorting out the loft. In the box was a little card thing Nan had been given when her cousin died. The cousin had died at the same age as the family acquaintance. The card had the cousin's name, date of birth and date of death, a bit about her life and then lots of details about her death. She'd died in the Blitz and everything from the type of bomb, to where she was and what she was doing when the bomb hit was detailed. It was an amazing piece of social history if nothing else! Nan didn't think it was unusual or anything either just "that's what people did back then"

It got us talking, it's not that we feel the acquaintance's family owed us an explanation of her death or her medical history, just interesting to see how times have changed.

Maybe it's just my family, but for the members of my grandparents' generation in my family death has always been discussed in a very matter-of-fact way. Whereas I feel for younger generations death and discussion of death (not just cause, but all aspects) seems to have become much more taboo.

I wish a lot of taboos were more openly discussed. My DS was stillborn last year and I was so saddened to hear of so many of my parents near neighbours babies who were lost many years ago (older generation) and they didn’t get to see their babies, far less give them a proper funeral or have them acknowledged by their wider families and communities. It’s so bloody sad.
At least I can still share my DS with the world, and I do because I’m so bloody proud to be his mum.
I can also share how he died (and I did, there were several local and national double pagers on us) and hope that if another woman happens to recognise my symptoms in herself, she might get herself checked out and her baby won’t die needlessly.
Openness is a good thing, but only if the family are comfortable with it. I’d never dream of asking how someone died because of the reasons PPs have outlined.

If a death is sudden, and there needs to be an inquest, then the official cause of death often isn't determined for quite some time.

By the time the inquest has been held, unless it's a significant celebrity, it's often no longer news and therefore doesn't get mentioned.

@Teandsympathy

My sister died in a horrible way when she was 20 and even now 18 yrs later I avoid mentioning her cause of death. It feels awkward and I hate the way people react when they find out. I’d rather people picture it a peaceful passing than imagining what really happened. It just feels like the least I could do in her memory as I know she would not like that kind of attention.

That's a good point, if people die in quite a shocking way then you wouldn't want how they died to overshadow their memory.

And I'm very sorry for your loss.

I don't think there's anything strange about wondering how someone you know, or a very close relative of theirs who you might have heard a lot about or met, died. It would be odd to ask very publicly (ie, on social media) or to hound them for the information, but not many people would do this.

I could guess the response to this thread before reading it. Only on a site where people ask for advice and are encouraged to go into great detail about their lives, relationships and health, could people be offended by someone even wondering about this subject! It makes me wonder why some posters are on MN when they find it so distasteful to have the slightest interest in other people's lives....

@EnglishRain

My brother died aged 31 on 15th January. We still don't know why he died. We've been told to wait another 10 weeks for tissue sample analysis for a cause. I thought most causes of deaths were identified at a post mortem, but I wonder if others are kept waiting like us and genuinely don't even know the cause?

Sometimes the cause is never known.

Some years ago, a client of mine died. He was a bit of a recluse, and by the time he was found they think he'd been dead for a couple of weeks. The pm and inquest were unable to determine the cause, but the coroner was satisfied that it was natural.

@peachgreen

Yuck. My DH died in October from sudden cardiac death. People stay stupid things after a death but nobody has ever upset me apart from the fucking insensitive nosy fucking arseholes whose first question was, in a sort of breathless tone of excitement, "was it Covid?" It's nobody's fucking business how someone dies and asking is crass at best, actively hurtful at worst.

This thread has really riled me up.

Sorry for your loss, @peachgreen.

My DP died in November, also a cardiac death. I tell anyone who wants to know how it happened, and take the opportunity to bang on about how he'd probably still be here if only he hadn't smoked 30 fags a day and refused to take medication for his hypercholesterolaemia.

I'm equally open about the deaths of my late parents and any friends where I know the cause.

I don't think it's taboo, just none of anyone's business other than close friends and family who would probably know anyway.

I think, as a culture, we've got a pretty fucked up way of dealing with death. We distance ourselves from it so much.

Death is a part of life. We all face it. I think some people don't know how to deal with it. The reminder of it is too much, so talking about how someone died can be painful.

My DM and I have a very practical approach to death. My DSis does not want to talk about it ever and shys away from it.

It’s wanting to distance yourself from the death though isn’t it so if someone dies who is my age and they smoked, knowing that makes me less worried I will drop dead as I don’t smoke. It’s a reaction to being scared of death, you want a reason that they were different to you otherwise you’ve got to confront your own mortality.

My cousin committed suicide, people were told by his mum that he had been unwell. Lots of people came to his funeral, family friends etc. One woman kept on probing till my auntie said it was suicide. She then said he would die over and over like that for eternity as suicide is a grave sin. My auntie had just buried her boy. She never got over his loss, never found peace and died herself last year.

You don't have a right to know why someone else died. If you weren't close enough to know then quite frankly you should keep your nosiness to yourself.

I think some of these replies are a bit harsh. Of course, if the people closest to the deceased want to keep the cause of death private then that is their right (and I would certainly never be rude enough to ask how someone died!), but I don't think being curious about how someone has died means that you are a ghoul or a gossip.

When you have cared for/liked someone, I think wanting to understand how it is that they are no longer here is perfectly natural. No one needs to know all the gory details, but knowing 'car accident' or whatever can be helpful. Even more so if the death has come as a shock. Also, it is part of the deceased's story - maybe not the most important part of their story, but the end of it.

I also think it allows people to celebrate on the deceased's life more if there isn't a question mark / elephant in the room about how they died. There is so much that is mysterious about death already. For me, it is part of understanding the basic facts of their life and helps to accept their death. Even if it is a difficult reason - such as an overdose, or death by suicide, it is part of their life story.

Anyway, of course it is up to the deceased's family (who in some cases may even be honouring the wishes of the deceased), but I don't think people should be ashamed of being curious. It is always the first question which springs to my mind when someone dies before their time.

I don't believe that death is taboo or that people are 'invited in' to other people's bereavements. If this site is anything to be believed the people post notices for themselves, for their own wishes and feelings. It doesn't mean that 'outsiders' have been invited in.

I think that if you're not privy to the details of somebody's death then you're not in the circle and really, it's not anybody else's business.

I know you have the right to post whatever thread you want but I'm a bit gob-smacked that you'd need to ask the question, OP. I would have thought it really obvious.