To think we don’t ‘do’ dying and death well in the UK

[FrenchFancie]

I’m currently sitting vigil with my grandmother who at 96 is slowly dying - she’s had a lovely long life but a miserable old age riddled with cancer that has robbed her of her sight, and now led to a broken hip and shoulder. She is settled with pain relief and slowly slipping away but this isn’t the quick clean death she would have wanted.

i don’t want to open a euthanasia debate (really can’t cope with that right now!) but I’ve noticed that many people are very very awkward around death and some have even gone so far as to tell me she might recover (she really won’t). AIBU to think we as a culture don’t handle death well? How do we I prove that? Do other cultures do better or is this unease with death a uniform human experience?

Firstly, I am so sorry you are losing your grandmother. It’s a very difficult time and my thoughts are with you and your family.

But also I agree. My family are Irish, me being the last one born there. My grandad died in similar circumstances to the one you are in now. In his room with family, it was just about spending time with him and accepting we were losing him. Outside the room, with my (now ex) husband people kept telling me to keep my chin up and he might recover. Or people blanked me just looking awkward.

My mum died suddenly last December. And loads of people I considered to be as close as family just never got in touch. Or did until they funeral and then disappeared. Apparently, me still grieving 6 weeks after she died was bringing them down. Or they were uncomfortable by our funeral traditions such as bringing mum home. Or the fact that we knew mums funeral wishes, despite her only being 66 and fine until the morning of her death.

I think people just don’t know what to say, because there’s nothing that can make it better and people just can’t deal with it.

In My family we talk about them and listen to eachother and just support by spending time together. We all know no one can make it better so don’t try. But it feels more natural.

I am often surprised how much people in England try and shield their children from any mention of death. Again, it’s not something my family do. We don’t shove death down their throats but don’t hide it either.

Just to say, these are my observations of differences between Irish culture and English culture. It’s obviously not everyone’s experience.

OP - I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your grandmother and Andromachehadabadday - your mother's loss too.

I agree - although I don't think it is the UK per se - more down to the individual, their background and personal experience. Unfortunately, I've found generally people who have not lost a close family member don't generally know how to act or what to say, so tend to say nothing and ignore. Also, it depends on the person who is bereaved. Some bereaved people want to be left alone whereas other bereaved people really do appreciate a kind thought or acknowledgement or shared memory of their loved one.

They say you find out who your real friends are when you are bereaved. I sadly found this to be true when my ds died. People who I thought were close suddenly refused to talk to me/cross the road from me.

You are right. I had the same experience when DH was dying, people telling me to "keep positive" because he might recover (I think I found that the hardest thing because it silenced me and meant I couldn't talk about what was happening and how we were dealing with it). Now people seem to be afraid to say his name in case...well I don't know really.

I wish your grandmother a peaceful passing and I wish you comfort and strength in the coming days and weeks.

I agree, my auntie died young at 51. I remember someone telling me she might get better. She wouldn't, we'd been told she was 100% going to die in the next hours/day. It's always stuck with me. Off the back of that I went on to be a nurse and I agree, so many people suffer at the end, although we try our best to prevent this. Sorry your relative is unwell OP. All the best to you and your family.

I am very sorry for your loss and for the process not being quite what your grandmother would have wanted.

I am Buddhist and one of the core meditations is on death, understanding that I will definitely die, that the time of death is uncertain, and it may be today. This actually when performed correctly brings a lot of happiness, as you might imagine, when it influences you to live and behave towards others with the knowledge that this could be your last day.

I mention this because I believe there are different cultural norms, but I suspect it is a very universal human experience to not believe that we will die. In this meditation, you say to yourself ‘ I may die today’ and observe your inner response. For me, there generally is a variation on a wee voice that says ‘no I won’t’. It’s really shocking to believe. I know we all believe it on one level of course, but to really accept it means living life with this acceptance informing all your actions. We are always planning, living in the future, expecting to be here. If what I’m trying to say makes sense? Not saying I can do this but it is my suspicion that most people can’t/don’t want to accept the reality that we will all die and we don’t know when.

It’s really annoying when people suggest they might make a miraculous recovery - in many instances surviving would be worse than death. I think there’s something polite about being positive rather than accepting it for what it is.

Im sorry for your impending loss OP. I hope that events unfold as well as they can.

I think we have removed ourselves from death a great deal. Death has become something to be frightened of. When my daughter died people didn't know what to do or say to us. We had family members who felt that we should have been over it once the funeral was done and said the idea of having her ashes interred was 'morbid'. They get visibly uncomfortable when we talk about her. I'm not angry at them anymore, they just don't know what to do, they are so afraid of death that they want to pretend that it doesn't happen.

We all one day will die. It is as inevitable as the sun rising. I would like my death to be a good one, I want my family to know what my wishes are, so I tell them, I don't want them to be left wondering what to do when the time comes.

I wish your grandmother a peaceful passing.

I think as a society we've lost sight of the idea of a "good" death, by that I mean all affairs in order, making the most of our time, and an acceptance that it will come to us at some point.

I hope your grandmother is able to find some peace soon and that you're able to be a comfort to one another as she moves towards passing

Sorry for your situation @FrenchFancie YANBU. I hope it all goes as well as these things go. I'd go further and say as a culture we don't do empathy well. An awful lot of people either have poor social skills or just don't care to say the right thing.

I wonder if it’s just atheists who have this problem?
To them, death is utterly without consolation, they believe it’s total oblivion, so they either avoid mentioning it or make inappropriate remarks about the possibility of recovery, which are so crass to the family of a terminally ill patient.

Christians see death as a beginning, not an end. A glorious transition from the bonds of this mortal state, to eternal life in the loving presence of God, reunited with our loved ones. We are perhaps more accepting of its inevitability and comforted by our faith. I found that my minister and Christian friends and family were able to say and do all the right things when my DH died unexpectedly.

My experience has been very different from that of several people on this thread. I lost my son, and I found that with just one or two exceptions people were good, kind, appropriate. No one avoided me; no one was uncomfortable with tragedy.
Perhaps it is because I am a reserved person in any case. I didn't have a host of goood-time friends who couldn't make the switch from trivial socialising to profound empathy.

Nope. I'm an atheist and I'm not afraid of oblivion or anything like that. Death is the end of a life hopefully well lived. I don't need the promise of anything else.

Most of the people I know who simply couldn't handle our daughters passing or death in general were those who would describe themselves as Christian.

I don't think it has much to do with religion though as it goes. I think society has distanced itself from death and dying in order to convince itself that it won't happen.

We don't generally cope well with death, it's true. It has almost become taboo for some people, and thus something to be feared.
And the awful euphemisms that are used don't help - particularly "passed away" and (even worse) "passed". I'm actually reassured that some of the language about the death of HM The Queen has been much more honest and straightforward.

I don't know if other cultures do it better. I'm irish and I sat through my mother's last days which were incredibly painful for her. She was put on morphine and we were then sent into palliative care unit. Her siblings called in and chatted, there were tears and laughter and stories exchanged while my mother was sleeping (we knew she wouldn't wake up and it was a matter of time.

One particular relative went above and beyond helping us - she was a nurse in the hospital off duty and she was brilliant and it was almost like the "wake" had begun and I think that is quite common with the older generation on someones deathbed they gather to support the family in the final hours- sometimes its a bit much with the prayers and stuff but it can be comforting.

I agree with you. It's so frustrating that people dismiss things that are happening.

There was a girl two or three years younger than me who was fighting cancer. Unfortunately she disclosed that her cancer had become terminal.

From what I could see through her words and photos she was extremely ill, tired, exhausted and had pretty much given up.

People were commenting under her post saying how she will get through this and how she needs to stay positive. WTF?

She literally stated her cancer was terminal and nothing else could be done for her. I found those comments really insensitive and in poor taste.

Yeah, I fully acknowledge I'm being a bitch as these people would have been hurting. But it really seemed as though they were trying to give her false hope. She had simply had enough, I could see it for myself and I didn't even know her.

I'm so sorry for you, OP. Sending Much Love 💕

I agree OP. I got all kinds of unhelpful comments when my partner died. I have tried to be tolerant because I think it is society's problem, not individual.

Because her dad died I have had to talk to our young daughter about death. I have been taken aback by some of the responses I've had. For example nursery told me that when she mentions her dad they quickly change the subject because they don't want her or the other children upset. Other parents started crossing the street to avoid me. I thought, no wonder we don't deal with death we'll, look at the messages our children are getting.

@MyFragility thank you.

Just wanted to pick up on the point about atheists and Christians. I don’t find that at all. I don’t consider myself Christian or atheist.

The people I know who found it hardest were all people who are Christian. The 2 Atheists that I know, have been fully accepting of how much I miss her. They understood how devastating it is to spend your life building a relationship with someone, to have such a bond with someone that no one could break, then to physically lose that person in an instant.

I don’t believe in Christian heaven. But I do believe there’s an afterlife and I will see my loved ones again. But it’s not enough. It’s not the same. Seeing mum again, when I die and have to leave my kids and knowing they will go through what I am now, isn’t a great comfort.

Mums family are Catholic and comfortable with talking about how it’s not the same and are great.

I think it’s more cultural than based on religion.

@FrenchFancie I hope your Grandmother has a comfortable night.

My dm passed away two weeks ago. I didn’t like that she was on ward and we were curtained off. A quiet room would’ve been better. My manager rang me when I was with my dm. He was all ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine’. I knew he was a complete dickhead, but this cements it for me as to why I don’t like him.
Dm was a DNR, so when the nurses and doctors were hinted that she was very unwell, I knew what they were angling at.

For you op 💐

I'm a nurse in acute care with single rooms so I'm with a lot of people who are dying. I think death on acute hospital care is on the whole done terribly. When someone dies on hospice it's generally a death from cancer and more of an expected timeline. Family can plan a little better and its a more homely environment.

In acute care we often treat but if they deteriorate they would not be for extreme measures such as ventilation or CPR as they would be incredibly unlikely to have any beneficial outcome. The fact that we are treating with antibiotics etc leaves family with a hope that they will get better even though things are deteriorating and because we are still in active treatment I'm still doing hourly observations and daily bloods and multiple antibiotics and fluids and I sometimes feel a sense from the patient that they want me to just leave them to rest with their family. I find it the hardest part of my job.

The British awkwardness around death means that people rarely have these conversations with their family until a time when someone is critical unwell and emotions are high. I remember my poor grandfather had very advanced COPD, completely bed bound, on home oxygen, nursing home resident, multiple pressure sores and weighed about 6 stone. They dragged him up by ambulance every few months when he got a chest infection in the middle of the night where he was treated with antibiotics/constant painful bloods/vital signs taken hourly then back to the care home. The last time he went up he was terrified and said he didn't want to go and just wanted to die. I asked my dad to make sure there was a plan in place and medications to keep him comfortable at his care home to let him die with some dignity.

In my opinion it is because we (as a general society) try and shield children from the realities of death and grieving. I feel like I deal with deal “well”, but it is because my parents both died when I was young, and I HAD to accept death as a part of life, and had seen it first hand. I’m also very in touch with my feelings so allowed the hard feelings to exist and get through when I was grieving. That definitely helped.

I am an atheist and I think in general atheists have done so much thinking about their beliefs and how they fit in with the world that they do accept death as a part of life. Devout Christians I know are hugely comforted by the prospect of going to meet Jesus and be in Heaven. I find it’s those who hold more “general”, or looser (for wont of a better word) Christian beliefs who struggle. Perhaps their parents were bigger believers and they’ve grown up with death being talked of as “going to heaven” or “the angels came to take them” and despite not quite wholeheartedly believing the whole idea they don’t have anything to replace it with, and may not have had direct experience of death (especially as people are living much longer). I’m in my 30s and a lot of people my age still have both sets of grandparents alive. If we are not exposed to death how can we expect to be able to deal with it? We do need to be much more straightforward and honest about death.

Yepp.
My English husband doesn't have a will, won't discuss one. This could leave me i a shit situation as she had a grown up child from a previous relationship.
He won't ask his mother about what she'd want or what arrangements are there for his disabled brother in case she passes.
It's all because of being superstitious... drives me up the wall.

You couldn't be further from the truth if you tried. I don't fear death because its not an experience, its not like being trapped in a dark room that you can't escape for eternity. I do believe in an afterlife but only in the sense we all live in on people's memories. When my father died the worst people were his devout Christian parents. They couldn't accept it and were pretty much useless and we are now NC with them.

I see you pop up on a lot of threads and I'm 100% certain you see all atheists as nihilistic and deeply miserable.

I agree. I'm Irish, and it's one if the really big cultural differences I've noticed since moving here. Death in England seems to be treated as a very private, personal matter, like some sort of intimate body function which can't be mentioned in public and which you never dream of intruding upon. So dying and grief and mourning are things where you get support from your immediate family and may e a very close friend, but no wider community support.

It is really strange. The Irish and Scottish definitely have a healthier relationship with death in my experience. Even during the process, the language is different. People wish you quick, painless, peaceful passing for your relative, not a "Good luck! I hope a miracle happens!"