Found comparison of grief hard

[25smallstacey]

Mumsnet can be good at tough love/realistic expectations so I'm here for that. I've had a weird few weeks of fog so I need some directness.

My Nana and my friends brother were in the same hospital at the same time. We were able to help each other, meet for coffee and relate to one another. They passed away within one week of one another.

My Mum was a single Mum, my Nana took me each weekend, we spoke most days and she was 81. Im so grateful to have her until my 30s. My friends brother had a long illness over fifteen years. It's been dreadful for them and we've watched as friends through many years of heartbreak for them.

I rang my friend as soon as I heard the news. Sent a hamper of food. Called as often as she wished for me to call. I tried my best.

This is where I might be unreasonable.....
When Nana died my friend said it's not the same. Nana had a good life, was a good age and friends brothers death was 'tragic'. I never once tried to compare but I tried to relate via passing on funeral planning knowledge, what was helping me with sleeping, practical tips etc. I didn't expect my friend to call, send anything or help as she had her own grief but I found the dismissal of my bereavement hard. I hid it and am continuing support.

In your experience - and thats fine, i would never presume to tell you or anyone else how big your grief is. But the same courtesy should be extended to others - in their experience age may not make a difference. That is what I am saying - that grief is very personal and how we each see it is not universal so we should not tell others how we would compare levels of grief.

Oh OP, it's so hard isn't it? Grief hits us all differently and our 'grief journey' is a very lonely and personal one, no matter who we are grieving.

I lost both my sister (42) and my mum (85) within 12 months of each other...and their losses were both devastating, but different and not comparable. I think your friend needs to work on her delivery...what she said and how she said it was insensitive, of course, but ultimately a young life lost is such a tragedy in so many ways, and so hard to understand and process when you're right in the midst of your initial grief. We can't, and shouldn't, compare any loss though...each one is just as devastating...the differences are the circumstances.

Much love to you...it's hard, I know ❤️

That is a really insensitive thing for them to say. Obviously they said it in grief but it's out of order.
She could have kept it positive and said something about how good it was she lived that long, and the happy memories you'll have of her. Not that her death is less important!
I'm hoping she will realise she needs to apologise profusely. This could damage your friendship otherwise.
It's terrible losing someone, no matter how old either of you are.
Things do gradually lighten up, I promise. Sending my love at this difficult time.

The difference that age makes is the grief for lives that should have been lived had that person not died. It’s being flung into an alternate universe.

Your friend was wrong to say what she did, it was insensitive and said due to her grief.

When a relative dies at a ripe old age from a relatively short illness, the grief can be more manageable, and it could be expected that people come to terms with it within months.

Whenever someone has a very prolonged illness and/or dies decades before their time the trauma is unimaginably huge.

To put it on a scale for me would be like the difference between falling 5ft vs falling into the Grand Canyon. Or jet lag encountered flying to Spain vs flying to Australia.

Recently I had a meeting with someone near retirement age, who was acting unprofessionally and going on and on about their ailing mother - who must be late 80s/90s.

Mine died circa 60, my DH mid 50s when we were 20s/30s… some friends lost their parents in teens and 20s… others lost a spouse in 30s/40s leaving young children behind…

I found it hard to remain patient and not get angry with the woman with the long lived mother, who had, to my mind, little to complain about. But equally I understood my feelings were coming from a position of intense grief.

Have patience with your friend if you can; she is not only processing the loss of her brother at a young age, but the trauma of 15 years where he was very unwell and the situation is quite different in terms of the level of emotion it brings up.

This is not to discount your level of feeling for your Nana, but it is a different type of grief she’s going through due to the trauma surrounding the death.

I’m so sorry for your loss OP, it is incredibly hard to lose a much loved grandparent and to experience this sort of grief for the first time.

I think your 'advice' on dealing with a bereavement was what offended your friend. I would find it insulting personally as like others have said you aren't appreciating the nuances of grieving a young person

@Merrymouse

I wish I’d seen your post before writing mine.

This is it entirely… when I’ve lost an elderly relative it has of course been terrible, and incredibly sad. But life goes on, and remains largely intact except for the loss.

Losing my mother early after long illness was like being zapped into an alternate universe with everything changed and I literally don’t think it is possible to ever come to terms with it or get ‘back to normal’.

I think the anger stage of bereavement is harder when someone dies unduly young. You might have stepped through that phase quite easily (but it’s not linear!) as you can rationalise your gran was old and is wasn’t a huge shock.

Your friend might be stuck there for a while as losing someone in their 40s feels unfair in a way that can’t be rationalised. Your friend then might be angry at you for not having to deal with that unfairness.

You will both be feeling different but all
consuming emotions at the moment, and sometimes it’s hard to lean on someone who is already grieving but differently to you (see the stats on couples that stay together after losing a child).

My advice is to try not to take anything too personal. Your friend has her own emotions and doesn’t have the capacity to consider yours right now.

My fit healthy husband died less than a year later, from cancer, when my children were teenagers. We are still putting our lives back together, and our family will never be properly whole again. Some well meaning adults did try to compare my children’s loss to their loss of a parent in adulthood, and it felt like staring across a gulf of incomprehension.

I hear you. That was exactly my experience. I'm sorry that you and your children had to experience a very similar loss to ours @Merrymouse

You know nothing about me or how I live my life so that comment is foolish at best.

This
Both are coming from own perspective.
Op is saying to friend you losing your brother in his 30s after an illness since his teens the same as me losing my grandparent after a long happy life.
Friend is saying the opposite that losing a grandparent in their 80s is nothing like losing a brother.
Both horribly sad, but so personal.

This. I vividly remember hearing the news and how the world around me suddenly sounded different. The birds, the traffic, people in their gardens. I was disconnected from all of it and I couldn’t understand how everything around me hadn’t stopped, as my world had. For weeks afterwards I would hallucinate his voice. I’ve never been the same since. There has been no ‘coming to terms with it’. I’ll find myself in a situation where my dad would have known what to do or I want to tell him something important that’s happened, and I start crying because it’s like I’m losing him all over again. Like, here is another thing that should have been but isn’t and will never be.

I'm so sorry, how unbelievably hard.

People shouldn't compare.

I lost my dear sweet granddad last week at 81 after a short battle with cancer.
And 6 years ago nearly to this date I lost my triplet sons.
You just can't compare grief or death, everyone has their own right to be sad it doesn't matter if they had a long life or a short life.
I'm so sorry about your nana. May she rest in peace.

@AntonFeckoff
I remember it feeling like the world had cracked in two and have felt stuck since, even though of course I’ve got on with things. I haven’t enjoyed any of my 30s at all, like trying to enjoy a strawberry daiquiri but it’s colourless and tasteless…

After the death I would be in tesco and couldn’t understand why everyone else couldn’t see that the world had stopped. Like there was an earthquake but they were doing nothing. I wanted to scream at them for it, why couldn’t they see? Exact same feeling as you.

In the end you become numb to it, tidy it away in a drawer, but it still lives with you. Like carrying an anvil.

Sorry to everyone who has lost someone that has been drawn to this thread 💐

What I think we can all take from this is that two people who've both been recently bereaved are rarely able to support each other.

I am so sorry you have lost your Nana. Grief is awful and affects everyone differently. You need to be gentle with yourself and concentrate on you. When we are wrapped up i our own grief it is often hard to feel for anyone else, i think your friend didn't mean to be unkind but she was a little clumsy when trying to say that it tragic when someone has short life full of illness.

Grief can make you really jaded.

I lost one parent when I was 12, and the other when I was 32. Both in here one minute, gone the next situations.

I have never, ever, voiced these opinions out loud, but I do struggle to give too much of a shit when people who are my age lose their grandparent. I don't necessarily think I'm correct in those feelings, but they are there and as long as they are just in my head I don't feel the need to work through them.

On the other hand, I've also had people try and suggest that the out of the blue loss that I have experienced is in some way better than the loss of someone after an illness. It makes me want to punch them in the face, because it's not a competition. There are no winners here.

I would suggest giving her space to grieve, and allowing yourself the space to focus on your own grief.

I've also had people try and suggest that the out of the blue loss that I have experienced is in some way better than the loss of someone after an illness.

JFC. I'm really sorry.

Absolutely. It's changed our family in a way that wouldn't have happened with an older person dying.

Grief is so deeply personal. When my father died, I had been NC for a few years. He never got to see my daughter, his first grandchild. I hated him. But when he died, there was grief, for the relationship that might have been. It's all very difficult to navigate, and we should all allow ourselves to go through it it. There's no 'map'. It just sucks really, but it's an inevitable part of life.

The other day I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for years. I discovered that her husband had suddenly dropped dead in front of her and the children while they were on holiday abroad.

It made me really grateful for the 18 months I had with my husband after his terminal diagnosis. Those times were of course hard. But to my mind, much, preferable (from a grieving perspective) to losing someone so suddenly and traumatically.

So yes, when I compare other people's losses to mine (in my head) it's usually because I'm grateful to have been able to say goodbye.

Honestly I think it’s the “I tried to relate…” bit.

It’s like when my husband was trying to sympathise with me last month when we had a bug. He threw up once and felt nauseous. I threw up around 20 times and couldn’t move for 24 hours. He kept saying “aw I’m sorry, it’s been rough hasn’t it, looking after the kids and being sick” and all I kept thinking was WE ARENT IN THE SAME SITUATION HERE. It (unjustifiably) felt like he was downplaying the absolute horrendous time I had. Obviously I know this is not the same as your situation.

Maybe by trying to relate and giving here “grieving tips”, she feels like you are making it about you, and acting as if you are in the same boat. I can imagine it would be frustrating for someone who feels life has wronged her brother.

When my nan died my friend told me to get over it because she was old.

I no longer speak to her.

It was an awful thing for her to say to you. Death always comes with sadness for those close to the person, and of course it’s better knowing they’ve lived a long (and hopefully happy/fulfilled) life, rather than dying young.

My mum died from an unexpected (came on quick) illness at 56. Before she could be a nana to my kids or see me get married. Around the same time an older friends mum died at age 89. She used to compare the two. Whilst I did think to myself (whilst not minimising her grief in the slightest) it’s not the same thing, I would never have actually voiced that opinion. And I never thought that my grief was more than hers at losing our mums, just that I also grieved so many events and experiences that I should have been able to experience with her and I wished I had been able to grieve her death when she was 89 rather than 56.

It was very rude of her to say that (especially with no prompting of the subject). I wouldn’t necessarily bring it up as she’s obviously going through a very traumatic time, but yes, it was wrong of her to say.