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?

@Babdoc

I’m sorry that your post seems to have attracted so many bitter atheists, eager to deny the reality of your experience . Whatever their denial of God has given them, it doesn’t seem to be compassion or courtesy. I suppose if you have resolutely turned to your back on the spiritual, those who have embraced and been embraced by it must be very unsettling.

I also have known people who have found great comfort and support in their faith in times of trouble and bereavement.

My first memory of death was my great aunt. I was 5/6 yrs old and we were staying with my other g-aunt ( both aunts lived together). No one, back then, left their family member in a chapel of rest, this was 1960s England and not catholic. I wanted to see the coffin, I’d never seen one, so after a little discussion my DF took me into the room. It was an open casket and I clearly remember the lid resting against the wall with a brass name plaque on it. I don’t remember being sad or scared. I was actually more interested in the coffin that the dead body within. The room was as it always was, the curtains drawn but not dark.
A huge contrast to my DM in a chapel of rest with strange amber lighting (quite spooky/disturbing) . I would have been much happier seeing her in our sitting room at home.
I agree that we have sanitised death to the point where we are no longer able to grieve in a natural way.
I think the Queens death has opened up a conversation for many people. Why don’t we offer our own family the same ability to say goodbye. The queens family were allowed time with her body to adjust to accept that life had gone. It was not whisked away only to be seen again as it is taken away for good.
Many hospices have a cold room ( a normal bedroom kept at a low temp) used when a patient dies for family to come and spend time with their loved one. Why shouldn’t every family be afforded the time to say goodbye properly.
It used to be the norm, now it is seen as odd. Perhaps funeral directories should offer it as an option to everyone.
A vigil is not a religious act it is an act of love. Looking after your loved one after death is no less important that looking after them when alive.

I think the point you (along with Babdoc) have missed is that a person can be an atheist and still be open, accepting and supportive of others having their own beliefs and their own way of doing things without considering yourself better than anyone else. The fact Babdoc has said only her fellow Christians get it right for her says more about her and who she mixes with than it does about anyone else .

I'm Irish but lived in England for many years and never really got my head around the differences in approach to death/funerals etc. My husband is English and has experienced a couple of Irish deaths including my own dad, and thinks the Irish way is a lot healthier. He was mildly freaked out by the open coffin but liked the sort of business-as-usual normality of it all

im Irish too. I was 12 when my dad died suddenly aged 45 and we lived in England. Coffin was open in my parents bedroom. DB was 10. It was a really healing and helpful experience for us all to go and sit with him and talk to him and say goodbye. I still remember it like yesterday. He was dressed really smartly and we all thought he would have liked that. We chose some of his favorite things to place with him in his coffin. We had a proper wake. Almost all the English people who came expressed horror that we had an open coffin in the house and that we kids were going in and out to see our dead dad. Almost all of them also went in to see him and afterwards said what a positive experience it had been.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen sorry, just to add that I do have a faith but it’s my faith and it doesn’t make me better than anyone else and I don’t believe that it’s only people from my faith who could comfort me in a time of sadness. I’d take comfort from anyone with the spirit it was intended regardless of which path they follow.

We lost an elderly relative this year after a long, difficult year of illness and slowly slipping away. Her quality of life was minimal and fortunately she and her next of kin all agreed that it was now the point of declining medical intervention that only served to delay the inevitable, and care focused on basic needs and comfort. She died semi-abruptly about 2 months later.

Due to distance my DCs hadn't had an opportunity to see her for a long time, and we have been pragmatic that she was very old and her body was gradually ceasing to work. With simple honesty they seem to have accepted her death well. It was their first experience of a funeral and was a full traditional Irish funeral including open casket.

Having suddenly lost a parent in childhood, I've always been open that death is a conclusion to life. It's quality of life that means more to me than duration of existence. There can be things worse than death, and I've had relatives where death was a relief and release from their suffering. It's not a viewpoint that society always embraces though.

Personally I feel very removed from death, I don't have a faith and the only people I have a personal experience with that have died are three people in a road accident I was first on scene for and my paternal grandparents who died well into their 90s and I wasn't overly close to. I was much more upset for the three people I didn't know perhaps because I was there at the end or it was a sudden way to go than my grandparents who had lived long lives.

Completing our family tree though death was such a normal part of life either through wars, illness or infant mortality up to 70 years ago that I would imagine through sheer experience and practise (if that's the right word) we dealt with it better particularly as our neighbours would be dealing with similar things as well. I have no idea what to say to people when they are grieving or have a family member with a terminal illness.

No one here was bitter towards her or her faith. She made a dumb statement and has been called out for it.

I'm from Northern Ireland, but none of my English relatives match your description at all. Certainly none would say "Good luck!" or something silly like that.

On the whole, the way we deal with it in both places is very similar. I think it is in many, many places in the UK.

Where it differs tends to be on an individual family basis rather than cultural.

I haven't found that with my Scottish relatives at all. I can't think of any who weren't brought home and put in the front room or bedroom for the wake. My family have been crossing back and forward between Ireland and Scotland for centuries, they're more similar than different in most ways. But even the Scots I'm not related to are this way too. So maybe it depends on the area.

My mum died recently with pneumonia and although she passed away in less than 24 hours she suffered in those hours and there was nothing really that could be done to ease that for her. Death in this country is not dealt with well at all.

I talked to my mum about her wishes, re death, funeral, we made a list of her wishes, who to give her rings to! I'm also executor for her will. I don't know why people can't have such conversations.

When my English grandfather passed in 2012, everyone was given the choice of seeing him in a cold room. My English sister and I (N.I.) went together. No-one else wanted to including my other N.I. sister.

The option is still there for people.

I don't think there's major differences between the UK and ROI in dealing with death. IME, any differences tend to be on an individual family basis as you can find many in both who conform to the typical stereotype and many who don't.

Yes, maybe your relatives are more Irish in their ways when it comes to this. I have worked as a nurse in N. Ireland and Scotland, and it was prodominantly the English relatives that struggled to see death was the positive or right outcome in these situations. There was a different vibe around it. A fear or denial. That's not to say some Irish/Scottish didn't find it hard, but in general they were more likely to set up camp around the bed and have a good natter about life and whatnot.

I don't think there's any major difference there either. Some Scottish families are like this and some are not.

My English grandfather's coffin was brought home for the last time too. Again, some families will do this and some will not.

One relative wouldn't put soil in on top whereas another did.

I would say it likely had more to do with the fact they were farmers until relatively recently. So, death wasn't exactly alien to them.

But I would expect this to be the case anywhere in the UK and ROI where people live in countryside.

And I'd expect those living in urban areas to struggle more as you don't often see all kinds of death I those areas (human and animal).

I agree: since my parents' generation starting dying (having got to a variety of ripe old ages), as a family we have been struck by the importance of talking about death and funerals in advance: the worst services have been where the individual had not expressed particular desires, leaving the grieving to work out what would be good. The best have been planned by the individual, or at least been based on preferences or thoughts they have had. And the value of the wake, gathering to share memories, has really shown itself.

@evilharpy I'm in Ireland and I've never ever known a funeral mass to take place during normal mass. Maybe it's a country thing but certainly not what happens everywhere.
I agree with everyone who is saying the differences in how death is dealt with is cultural rather than religious. I was at a funeral only last week with my three year old now I didn't go into the church with her but stayed outside in the church grounds with lots of others while she played about and when mass was over I went over and sympathised with the daughters of the deceased when they came out of the church . Both of whom I'd known growing up and their absolutely lovely mum was a neighbour of my mum so it's just something that's done here. I met lots of my old childhood neighbours as people show up to pay their respect. It's a great show of support for the bereaved family.
@FrenchFancie thinking of you at this difficult time

I sort of agree OP. My Dad died last Sunday and I’m finding it quite hard (or perhaps I’m just irritable). It’s the combination of using a soft, sympathetic voice while expecting me to get on with things as usual.

I’d find the process Jewish friends go through a bit easier - really quick funeral and a set amount of time to mourn. My Dad’s post-mortem is on Tuesday (a week and a half after he died) and we can’t get the death certificate until that’s been done - and we can’t start with the funeral director until the death certificate is available. God knows when the funeral will be.

FrenchFancie I hope your grandmother has an easy death.

I've heard a lot that funerals happen very quickly in Ireland, but that is because most people ae buried, isn't it?

I think since Harald Shipman, you need to get through quite a lot of red tape to release a body for cremation and most bodies in the UK are cremated so that creates delays. And then we just don't have enough crematoria; or celebrants to carry out funeral services whether religious or non-religious, so that creates more delays.

My father's funeral was about 2.5 weeks after his death (6 years ago) but my MIL's this year was 5 weeks later! Relatives who've been buried have had funerals more quickly, but still at least 2 weeks later (the church where my uncle and aunt's funerals were held only does requiem masses one day a week, so that also delay things).

I have read this a lot and I'm sorry it's people's experience. It's not been my experience of bereavement in England. When my mother was dying many people visited her almost every day -- colleagues, friends, relatives, neighbours, the local priest (even though she was an atheist and he knew that full well). It was a hard death, cancer, and it took a while.

After she died, I received so many kind letters from people, filled with memories about how she touched their lives. I appreciated knowing she was valued and missed, and it made me understand properly why it's important to always write to people about their own bereavements, and go to the funeral if you can. It really matters. People still contact me from time to time to share their memories and I am so grateful.

She died at home and after we said goodbye to her body, they took her to the funeral home by the crem. We had an ordinary crem funeral, no god stuff, and a simple wake in the community centre. Or what we know as a wake, which is basically a do after the funeral, with no body present.

My mother left no instructions but it was not difficult to arrange. The CoOp did it all, basically. I organised it in about a day, and I was barely 25 at the time. We chose some music and read some words and shared some memories and cried together. It wasn't very different from the many funerals I have attended in church, just a bit more Lennon and bit less Jesus.

After she died our family and friends organised an unofficial rota of support for my father, inviting him for dinner etc and checking in on him, for a year or so. Of course we were sad and nobody expected anything else. It was terribly sad. I have always talked freely about my mother and I've had many conversations with all kinds of people about their own family bereavements.

I am of Irish Catholic extraction but way back, like 150 years back, same as half the bloody country, I think! I think we could say it was an English bereavement.

A very poignant, but interesting thread. I’m currently sitting with my father while he’s dying from heart failure and sepsis. I’m struggling, but trying to cope with it. On the day the Drs decided that he ought to go onto end of life care it made it easier that my father sat up and had the best day he’d had in ages (health wise) and told me he’d had enough, the meds weren’t working, he was sick of being poked and prodded. Everyone has to die sometime.. He was more accepting of it than I was. He is definitely not religious, he’s a scientist.

My mother has been pretty ill for the last few years too. Her best friend (and her daughters, who are my age) are adamant that she must be fixed, she’s too young (81). I wonder if I’m a bit more accepting of it because we’ve hD lots of pets die over the years, so I’ve had to cope with death.

I absolutely hate the phrase “they passed”. I’ll be using died.

@CruCru I'm very sorry for your loss
@gatehouseoffleet yes traditionally most people were buried and for a long time there was only one and then two crematoriums in the country but that's changed and lots of cremations and also lots of non religious funerals among all age groups but most of the rituals still remain such as people going to sympathise and the body being laid out. I have heard of one direct cremation a few weeks ago which was unusual however in general the move away from the traditional funeral hasn't changed how we treat death.

Not sure why the atheists on here are being described as bitter. Very odd.