Why are people trying to downplay how awful this is?

[laughloseya]

We got the news a couple of weeks ago that a colleague’s wife is terminally ill. Their daughter is only 23. It is so awful and I can’t stop thinking about them.

I was talking to another colleague about the situation. We are all good friends as well as colleagues and have been for many years, so know the family well. The colleague I was speaking to agreed it was awful and said she knew how they felt because she’d lost her father in her 40s. I lost my mother in my 30s and I said it wasn’t the same as being 23, and that our parents had both died suddenly, we didn’t have to endure watching it happen slowly. She immediately said ‘my uncle died slowly in my 20s, I know exactly what they’re going through’.

And then another colleague mentioned yesterday that she also knew exactly what the family was going through because her grandad had cancer in his 70s.

I just don’t understand this attitude of trying to shoehorn your own experience into this family tragedy.

What you are saying is that people who lost a loved one at an older age are not entitled to the same level of empathy as someone who loses a loved one at an earlier age

Well obviously no two situations are ever exactly the same so no one knows exactly what anyone else is going through.
But grief is grief and all your colleagues are doing is sharing their experience of grief. And the feeling of loss can be just as strong if you lose someone you love when you are 20 or when you are 50.

I never mentioned worse, although people seem obsessed with it.

I lost my only sibling as a child. I wish they’d lived till they were 23 - for their sake, not mine (though they’d still have been very young).

My mum died when I was in my 30s, very suddenly and in circumstances that was quite traumatic. If I follow the OP’s logic, it would have been better had she died when I was in my 40s or 50, so we would have had more time.

I’m not sure I agree with that. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with a sudden, traumatic death whilst going though peri-menopause and/or menopause at the same time.

Although losing someone at a young age ie terrible, young people tend to be more forward-facing than people in their 50s and beyond. They’re also less likely to have to try to juggle grief alongside caring for young children, elderly relatives, menopause and other illnesses. Those things on top of grief can really take their toll.

I never said that the grief was better or worse. This young woman isn’t yet grieving. I have no idea why this is so hard to understand.

Saying ‘I know exactly what they’re going through’ when you don’t isn’t expressing empathy.

Death is death, it is the only thing the whole of humanity has in common; grief has no place for competitiveness.

How do you know that they dont know what that person is going through?

What makes you say she’s not grieving? Has she not been told of the direness of her mother’s predicament?

When one knows a close relative is going to die, the grief often starts well before the actual death.

None of this explains why people who haven’t been in that person’s situation need to say that they know what they’re going through because of a completely different situation, though.

Agree so much with this. It’s so distasteful and disrespectful.

Most people have lost someone and no one has the right to make assumptions about what they went through.

It’s shocking when a parent dies at any age. People try to empathise based on their own experiences of grief. It’s not perfect, but it’s human.

The woman isn’t dead.

Because I know they haven’t lost their parents or ever been told their parent has a terminal illness. Obviously.

It’s just throw away attempts at relating/empathy.

It doesn’t mean they’re trying to “downplay” the situation.

You are confidently asserting that other people don't know what that family are feeling yet you are equally confident in your assesment of how awful it is for the family.
You don't know. They may be a pragmatic, unemotional family who deal with death without drama and histrionics.
You are in fact making it all about you and how distraught you feel.

We are talking about death, and grief. The woman is going to die as you've pointed out, and you're making it into a competition imho. The majority of people on here disagree with you. All opinions are valid, including yours op, but we do not have to agree.

Or perhaps they havent told you that they have lost someone close, lest you start ranking their place on the grief-o-meter

This. I think you are judging people who mean well. It’s hard to know what to say when you hear about these tragic situations.

My friend’s Dad died when we were in our early 20s. Another friend’s mother was terminally ill at that time. It doesn’t get any easier as we get older.

Maybe your colleague is bringing her own experience in to the conversation because its a completely pointless dialogue to be having

Are you all just meant to sit there orating over how shit it is for the daughter like a load of gossips?

I was sitting in a chemo suite having treatment only yesterday. My children are only 7, 8 and 10. I chatted to the man sitting next to me who had been misdiagnosed for 3 years until finally being diagnosed and given less than a year, he has a son of 14. There is a mum at my childrens primary school who has a 7 year old is very unlikely to still be here next Christmas. When you talk in terms of leaving behind young children I don’t consider 23 to be in that bracket. It is young to lose a parent but you are an adult.

They do know how it feels to lose a parent, that's the bit they are empathising with. Not the actual details of the death as everybody's circumstances are different.

It’s kind of ironic that some posters are berating you for making assumptions about your colleagues’ experiences, but at the same time implying it’s ok for your colleagues to say they “know” how this 23 year old feels. Nobody knows how anyone else feels, at the end of the day.

That’s very true, I saw young children and younger women than me having cancer treatment when I was in the chemotherapy rooms.