to find this comment about a mutual friend's death offensive? ( *Trigger Warning)*

[flowersss]

The thread I'm going to write is about cancer, so if you or someone you know is affected, you might want to stop reading as I don't want to cause upset to anyone

We have a friend who recently died of stage 4 breast cancer. She died really quickly, within 9 months of her diagnosis. She was fairly young, only 38 with 3 young children.

This was and still is very upsetting. We were able to visit her in the hospital and she died one hour after we had left.

A week after the funeral my partner, I and a friend of ours went to her husband's house to see him and to see how he was doing. We then drove back to our friend's house. Our friend said in the car that "she probably didn't get her breasts checked out". I was quite offended by that as there is no way we would know the exact back story of her cancer ( and I would never ask).

When we arrived at my friend's house his girlfriend repeated that she probably didn't check her breasts. When I said there's no way we could know that she insisted and gave me a long speech about how one should examine their breasts and that she knows all that because her mother is a nurse.

Obviously, I know how important it is to examine your breasts for lumps ( I'm not a dummy), but I'm still so taken aback by what they said that I now think quite negatively about them.
It's possible that she was negligent and didn't check her breasts, but I think it's inappropriate to say that after the poor woman has already died. Almost blaming her for her own death.

Also, I could imagine a scenario where breast cancer stays undetected and is quite aggressive and when you find it, it's already too late.

AIBU to be offended by their comments?

What gettingfedupagain FricasseeTurnips and RavingAnnie said.
People who have been bereaved say all sorts of illogical things.
Even more so, people who are speaking to people who have been bereaved put their foot in their mouth with alarming regularity.

My advice (in life, not just in bereavement), listen to the person's intent not just the words.
Like you, your friend is grieving. Quite possibly a little bit of her is frightened. She is trying to reassure herself, that is all. Don't go over reacting and depriving yourself of another friend because you are choosing to take offence at what she said at this highly emotional time.

I speak as someone whose sister died before reaching 40, and as someone who has had cancer myself. Between both events, people have said some things that came out wrong on more than one occasion, but I appreciated that they took the time to contact me and make the effort to say something. I didn't over analyse the actual words because, even when they got it wrong, I knew that came from a good place.

It was highly insensitive of her to say anything bar I'm sorry for you loss. As she didn't know your friend it hasn't affected her at all but probably scared her and she's rationalising it by thinking she's ok as she checks her breast.
She's a dick.
So sorry your friend died OP.

People can say bloody awful things at funerals. My mum said to my sister at our cousin’s funeral, “it was supposed to be you who died, not him.”

Fortunately, dsis knew what mum was actually saying, so wasn’t upset (dsis had spent most of the previous year in hospital, including several stints in ICU).

I think they were just trying to reassure themselves. It's a typical false reassurance mechanism...as I check my breasts every month it won't happen to me. Of course she could have checked, but unfortunately had an aggressive genetically linked tumour. It was very insensitive though and amounts to victim blaming.

YANBU, but it's probably from fear. If you do the right things it won't be you in that situation. In fact of course it won't necessarily make a difference.

A friend I worked with died from breast cancer. She did everything 'right', it was caught early etc. Apparently there is a tendency for it to be a more aggressive form of cancer when you're younger, and it turned out she was genetically at high risk.

I agree with others, that whilst incredibly insensitive to say, it is most likely just a way to rationalise it to them self and make them self feel better. For example, the father of a friend of mine was hospitalised with Covid and later died. When I told my mum she immediately started saying that he'd had ill health for years and hadn't looked after himself, drank too much etc etc. It wasn't that she was blaming this man for his death but more that she was so scared herself of getting Covid and dying from it that she took comfort in knowing that this man had ill health that had contributed to his death rather than him being a perfectly healthy person (like my mum) and succumbed to Covid. Grief and fear do odd things to people.

However, I also think that whilst you may justify these things to yourself or privately to a partner like this, I do find it inappropriate to be voicing those opinions to close friends or family of the person who has died. Plus, that's how rumours start and imagine how hurtful it would be to her family to know people were spreading potentially false information about her death and putting a blaming spin on it.

They were being unreasonable and I hope you are OK. So sad. We had a family friend die, the same age with 3 young children and her cancer was aggressive , she was told it often is in women so young.

Your friend obviously cares about your late friend because he went with you to see and comfort her husband. Sometimes we say things that are meant one way and come out another. I'm sure he's upset she's died and did not have the intent of blaming her. As for his girlfriend, maybe she just wanted to feel part of your group so got too involved. Most of us say the wrong thing at the wrong time and get forgiven. It's just so much more raw because of your friend's death.

Ignorant bastards... is what they are.. and I would not tolerate it, I'd cut them off. Fuckers.

So sorry for the loss of your dear friend OP. ....

Of course YANBU. That was a bloody tactless thing to say.

I am so sorry you lost your friend. So young too.

@FricasseeTurnips

It's self-preservation, isn't it. "I do this, so I'm safe" "she can't have done that, that's why it happened to her - I'll be safe if I do the opposite." If they had to accept that she had checked her breasts and still died - well, that's scary for them.

yup. Its very thoughtless and stupid but I think its fear driven. its an extreme example but its along the same line of "lost his/her battle" and similar phrases. people find it terrifying that its something they have little or no control over so they take refuge am almost superstitious attitude that if I do x y and z I will be safe.

That's rubbish. I was diagnosed with breast cancer (a different type in each breast -yay), but I'd had to be incredibly persistent as my GP kept putting the lump I'd identified down to the fact I was breastfeeding.
If your friend died so quickly it may not have mattered if or how often she checked.
I'm so sorry.

Cancer is nasty, and sometimes it spreads so fast, even early detection wont have mattered.

I knew someone who died from breast cancer. She had symptoms (part of her breast was rotting) but she was in denial and hid it for a long time. No one thought to say it was her fault.

Either way it wasnt her fault its a thoughtless thing to say

OP, if it makes you feel any better, routine breast self-examination isn't actually recommended any more, as there are concerns that it may lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and there's no evidence it improves survival rates. The most up-to-date advice is that women should be "breast aware", i.e. aware of what their breasts normally feel like so they can see their doctor straight away if anything changes.

I just don't understand her lack of awareness i mean she might have "thought it" but saying it outloud a few times is ridiculous!

she knows all that because her mother is a nurse.

Pity her mother the nurse didn't teach her about that caring profession's usual emphasis on tact, sensitivity and dealing the the distressed or bereaved. There's a time and a place for everything and that wasn't it.

I wonder if she had died in a car crash would they have said, "Oh, she was probably driving too fast. That's why we have speed limits. You should always observe the speed limit. I always stay within the speed limit. I know about these things because my cousin's postman's hamster drew the illustrations for the Highway Code".

My mum died of cancer and had no symptoms what so ever

I’d be very offended by your friends comments

She's a fool. She thinks she can guard against Cancer. A belief that runs deep in a lot of (stupid) people is if you die of anything with some known causes or symptoms then it's on you. She's never really thought much on her stand point.

It comes across as the ultimate (and extremely unhelpful, after the event) “I told you so”.

But it could have also come from a place of “if only”. Someone very close to me had symptoms for another type of cancer and, as is completely understandable and human nature, didn’t get them checked out until they were so severe that she could no longer ignore them. I sometimes think that, if only she had gone to the doctor sooner, she would still be here today. It doesn’t come from a place of blame, just wistfulness.