Bereavement

[Meatballsforever]

The funeral of our late Queen made me think about bereavement and grieving.

A colleague at work lost her mother in 2011. Her mother was 85. She had a very close relationship with her mother, in fact so close she moved her mother in when she got married.

She's told us at work she still misses her mother now and cries about it. She posts on FB sad memes about "wishing there was a telephone connection to heaven so she could speak to her" etc.

Is it unkind of us to think she should have moved on by now?

When my mother dies I won't grieve her at all, she was abusive as fuck and we haven't spoken in years and years.

I still have enough empathy to know that someone who was very close to their mum is going to miss them every day.

My son died in 1998 and my daughter in 2007 and there are some days I struggle to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other.

There is no time limit on grief.

Worth noting that comparisons of grief are a futile exercise.

Grief following loss of a parent is completely different to grief following loss of a child. Grief on the death of a partner is totally different to grief on the death of a sibling, etc etc. Yes they are all grouped under 'bereavement' but there's so many different emotions running through each dynamic - the only real constant is helplessness.

It sounds to me like your work colleague might need some sort of helping hand to regain some element of control, and pointing them in the direction of a Local Support Group (usually found via GP) or Charity (eg Cruse) is a decent start. Many people don't even know they exist and think they have to face it all alone, which is not true. It may not be a magic bullet but it may be just the prompt they need to open up "properly" to someone about how they are feeling.

I suspect you are projecting onto this woman at work….maybe your own inner child is grieving for the mum you never had but needed? There must be a reason why her grief annoys and irritates you so much.

Therapy helps.

God help OP, so lacking in insight or imagination.

It was my mother's 122nd birthday not long ago. She's been dead 50 years. Yes, I have moved on , had a whole rich and varied adult life in a country she'd never been to.

She's still around in my head , poking me in the ribs for a sly laugh; and I spot little flashes and glimpses of her nature and character in my adult sons .

@CPL593H Do you not think your relationship with your mother could be colouring your attitude to your colleague?

That's entirely possible but it's not just me at work that's fed up with her ruining the work atmosphere in the office by being maudlin.

My lovely Mum is still alive but I know when she dies I will always miss her. I won't ever move on. I'm not the type to post on SM and I don't imagine I'd cry but I will miss her. I make sure I spend as much time as I can with her.

I don't understand public grieving, the funeral of the Queen just totally baffles me but the day to day missing of someone is something I can understand.

My Dad died and as he was very old it honestly didn't upset me that much. I was sad but as he was suffering I was happy for him if that doesn't sound crazy. I catch myself thinking of things I'd like to tell him. I saw an amazing coloured old car today, I'd have like to have told him about it. Maybe that means I haven't 'moved on' either.

2011 is a long time ago.

However my mum died in 2020 (suddenly and she was relatively young - not that it makes a difference) and if anyone told me I should be over it by now I'd want to punch them.

So keep your thoughts to yourself and stop gossiping about her!!! Nastiest thing about your post is how you all seem to have got together and seem to be bitching behind her back.

One thing I've noticed on MN is that some women grieve early miscarriages way more than I would have ever thought woman would. There have been a few woman with really quite early miscarriages who said they took bereavement leave for almost 6 months. ( maybe it was sick leave)
I went into work three days after Miscarrying at 12 weeks. My way wasn't right or wrong and neither was theirs. Everyone is different. Bereavement is so complicated.

There is no set period for grieving privately, but the Facebook thing is ridiculous.

Everyone experiences grief in a different way, some more healthy than others, probably, but there is no time limit on it and it's not a linear process.

My step-dad died back in 2015 and although I don't think of him every day, there are still times when it comes out of nowhere and takes the wind out of me. Times like this, when the idea of death and funerals and grief etc are in the forefront of all our minds, regardless of your thoughts about the person in the news, obviously being back strong memories of our own experiences of loss.

I do understand that it's hard to be around someone who appears to be "stuck" but pushing them away and isolating them by gossiping isn't going to help; if anything, it will further sour the atmosphere.

You do not ‘move on’ from losing a loved one, and in fact only a year on from losing my own mum I have distanced myself from friends who started to talk about me moving on and getting over it.

despite thinking I lost my mum too early, I was 34, and her 70, I think realistically it doesn’t get any easier the older you or they are. The only upside is having less of your life grieving about it.

I have come to the realisation I will cry about missing my mum forever, but I suspect the distance between may become longer, however a year on, it hurts just as much as it did in the beginning when it does.

I stopped sharing anything about her online at a year, and won’t from now, because I was very aware of attitudes like yours. It is absolutely shit to feel like I can’t talk about her though.

I'm sorry that you had a bad relationship with your mother and that you don't like hearing about your colleague's grief.

But I'm so glad to not know you in real life because you are showing no compassion whatsoever.

It's not that hard to imagine losing someone with whom you have had a good relationship, is it? And the pain that would occur? People process emotions in all sorts of ways and time frames, it's not up to you to decide for anyone else.

Very unkind - glad I don’t know you

Is it unkind of us to think she should have moved on by now?

it’s your opinion and you’re entitled to that

have you experienced losing your parents? And how long did it take you to grieve?

You never move on from losing a loved one.
My dd died in 2015 I will NEVER be over it. My mum died 2 years later.
I miss them both.

My grandad died in 2012 and I'm still gutted.

I don't have much of a relationship with my mum, but if you have someone you're close to and love talking to I'm sure you'd always miss that if you no longer had it. Whether that be spouse, parent, child, friend.

I'm really sorry you lost your mum so young.

I accidentally pushed YANBU with my fat fingers but I meant to vote YABU.

I have not lost my mother, so I can only imagine. But it seems like losing your mum is something you never get over, I guess you learn to deal with it and everyone does differently. Some are more vocal than others.

I have a friend who lost her dad about 4 years ago, she still posts daily about him on Facebook.

I think people are less sympathetic when someone loses an elderly relative because it's seen as well they were old kinda thing but regardless of age of age it's still hard.

Op, I had a fairly atrocious relationship with my mother all my adult life and had been NC (her choice) for a decade when she died. It did hardly affected me at all (rather sadly) but I still get that other people have a very different experience and we all mourn differently. You could mute her on FB to stop some of it?

Nearly 40 years ago I worked with a woman who seemed ancient at the time but was probably not 60. She was a war widow (WW2) and had never remarried. She often cried about her poor young husband who she clearly loved very much and I think (I hope) us younger ones, all around 20, were kind to her, although it scared us a bit as it was far outside our experience. Her own generation in the office were very compassionate. It took me many years to comprehend the full tragedy of what had happened to her, including being "stuck" in a stage of grief many others would have eventually come to terms with. Although losing a parent at a great age is different, loss is loss and people find some of them very difficult for a very long time.

None of us know when a bereavement that will rock our existence is going to happen and how we will react.

Wow. You can fuck right off with that line of thinking. Maybe count yourself lucky that you've never loved someone so much that their death was so easily "gotten over". 🙄

YABU, because these things are so individual. It will depend both on someone's personality and their relationship with their mother and their circumstances in general. There's no 'should' about it.

I am sorry about your having such an unsatisfactory mother, but it does not mean that others should not be allowed to grieve theirs/

What?! I wasn't even that close to my dad but still cry sometimes and certainly would love to speak to him if I had the chance. I have a voicemail on my phone I listen to now and again. I'll never get over it, he's my dad. So heartless of you!

Yes, it’s unkind. She obviously had a very different relationship with her Mum than you had with yours.