To think the behaviour of these mothers is shocking and they bloody well deserve a slap?

[SassySusan]

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I'm so sorry for your loss, I can't imagine what you must be going through.

But I did agree with MQ and a few others who very politely and sensitively expressed how they felt in general about bereavement - ie that there simply is no right way to treat people and the risk if getting it wrong is so great that unfortunately, it can seem easier not to engage.

I'd probably say 'enjoy the weekend' or something like that too, and then think afterwards, what a stupid thing to say.

If I meet a bereaved person in a shop or on the street then I haven't had time to think what to say for the best.

My only experience of this is a dear friend who had 2 miscarriages and hates talking about it, or having it mentioned publically.

I'm sorry but I don't think all of these people doing their best deserve a slap.

Sassy, what your going through must be Hell. No mother should be in a situation when they outlive one if their children, and it's horrible when if happens.

People can really be so insensitive. My eldest brother commited suicide a few years ago, just completely out if the blue. I was away when I found out, but my poor mother was entirely on her own when my SIL called to tell her (I was away, my dad was away my other brother lives away) and the thought of how she must have felt when she was told the news, in some ways, hurts more than when I was told the news.

My other brother was hugely I'll as a child with kidney faliure. He had a transplant in the nick of time, but he doesn't have a long life expectancy. He'd battled depression for many years and my parents had always worried over his mental health. My oldest brother had it all on a plate really..good job, wife, great lifestyle. Something went seriously wrong and that was it, he just killed himself, we'll never know why.

The most awful thing about if all was hearing my grieving mother saying with such disbelief that she will eventually outlive both her sons.

In the while after my brothers death, do you know how many friends asked me how I was doing? One. That's it! She will never know how greatful I was to her asking me. I have other friends, some of whom I am very close to who have never even mentioned it to me at all other than in a "sorry to hear you'd bad news" text at the time of his death!"

i've not taken it personally, I've just learnt that people are really, really fucking shit when it comes to making conversation with someone who is grieving. Ans especially someone who is grieving over an unexpected death of someone who didn't die aged 93 peacefully in their hospital bed in their sleep.

2 months is not even time for the fog in your mind to even begin to lift so please, please look after yourself and don't waste your emotions on well wishers who are dithering around putting ther foot in things (all be it unintentionally)

I really wish you well.

Thing is, Morriszapp, they're not doing their best if they make crass comments like, 'enjoy the weekend' or 'what are your holiday plans'. They are really not.

And if these things slip out, how hard is it t to say, 'forgive me, that was a bloody stupid thing for me to say.'

I cannot imagine the pain felf by the OP and I hope to God I never do.

I also hope to God I never become wrapped up in a collective arrogance that believes a bereaved mother should cut some slack to those around her because they are struggling with what to say.

archstanton, that reminds me of when one of my sisters would say something stupid and then do this silly giggle to show she knew it was stupid thing to say. Not once did she just say, "Oh I'm a bloody eejit, just ignore that last comment," or something to that effect. I'd have given her an out and carried on with the conversation normally if only she could have admitted that it wasn't the best thing to say and just slipped out. Her stupid giggle and ignoring it was to save HERSELF from that awkward feeling.

It isn't arrogance at all. There is no right or wrong to it - on one hand, poeple dealing with loss have far greater things on their mind than sparing the feelings of the people they might meet out and about. At the same time, people who meet the bereaved out and about may well have no idea what so say, or even how to approach that person.

Everybody is equal, aren't they, everybody has their problems. Of course a bereaved person is going through a hell that many of us will never have to face, but if somebody suggests that I am crass, rude, deserve a slap etc then I simply can't help myself, it's my own instinct to say no, that's not fair, just as it the OPs instinct to rage against those she sees as being crass and rude.

What helps and comforts one person might upset and offend another.

Sassy, very sad to hear of your terrible loss.

Who do you have in RL these days taking care of you? (Apart from the school mums, friends and acquaintances) Do you have family rallying around, spending time, listening?

Apart from the deep anger you're expressing here, who do you have to talk to about the other things you mentioned, earlier in the thread?

That's the thing, SC. That's why I was so shocked and frankly upset at some comments on here in particular the one where the poster admitted saying something upsetting and feeling bad about it...but then ignoring the poor woman for weeks afterwards because SHE felt awkward.

I cannot speak for the OP for to me, it's not that people can say insensitive things that's the problem (although some are just beyond words) it's that they then don't acknowledge the insensitivity and worse still they then try to avoid the grieving person.

But Morris, the, 'no idea what to say' is their problem. And in fact I don't believe that's it anyway. I don't think it's that people feel at a loss with how best to comfort. Rather that the situation makes them uncomfortable and they want it over with ASAP. Otherwise people wouldn't be posting on here spouting crap like, 'give them a break they're trying their best.

That's bollocks! Trying their best would be talking to the bereaved person, offering to help where appropriate and if you know the person well, little gestures like plain cards on what would have been the child's birthday to show they're not forgotten.

I had a colleague that suffered a stillbirth. On the anniversary I sent a plain card saying something like thinking of you today and remembering Robert's first birthday. I was genuinely amazed and saddened for her when she thanked me and said that nobody else had even mentioned him.

i know two people who lost a child and both families thereafter made immediate holiday plans. so presumably they wouldn't have found it an insensitive question at all.

and when my dad died and people would say 'i can't think of anything to say that will make it better' i used to think 'try harder, you lazy sod, don't just stand there admitting to making no effort for me'.

so there you go again, what comforts one person really pisses another off. (actually, so there you go, there was nothing that some people could have said to me. others would have been able to wish me all sorts of nice weekends and enquired about vacation plans and it would have been fine. a lot depended on my mood at the time.)

i do think that people who are at least trying and fucking it up deserve a little bit more credit than they are getting here, given that the alternative is to avoid the person.

Of course it's my problem. I don't know what to say. I'm not suggesting that the OP helps me out or makes me feel better.

I have a problem - I don't know what to say to people I don't know very well who are going through intense loss. But I suspect that many people share my problem and it does not make us bad people - indeed I have tried my best in circs I can remember in the past and may have sometimes got it right, and sometimes got it wrong.

One size does not fit all - as I have already said, what makes one person feel supported might make another feel outraged or slighted.

My friend who had 2 miscarriages took offence at the nurses who spoke to her in a gentle tone of voice as she thought it was 'bloody patronising'. Yet if they had spoken to her brightly then she could equally have taken this as a failure to recognise her loss.

My point being, when all people and situations are so very different, how can people know instinctively how to make a bereaved person they don't know very well feel better? I make no excuses for those dealing with close friends, with close friends you simply ask them what they would like you to do or say, as I did when my friend had her losses. That's not the same as looking up in a shop and seeing somebody you know in passing and having something sensitive readily prepared - I know I'd be hopeless at that.

Hmm, do you know, Aitch, I think my instinct would be to run away on holiday too but I'd still find it an insensitive question to ask because thereis the implication that they should book a holiday and get on with life.

And I think trying and fucking it up, within reason, is more acceptable if you then acknowledge you've fucked it up and continue to try until you find the right level.

Realising you've fucked up and subsequently avoiding/ignoring the person or worse still feeling snubbed and offended is the height of arrogance and selfishness and shows so little compassion it saddens me.

yes but i doubt very much if the person who says 'have a nice weekend' realises that they've fucked up. (in fact i don't really think they have, except insofar as plainly they have because they have inadvertently upset someone who must by their own admission be a jangling bunch of raw nerve endings right now. )

Anyway, I'm going to bow out now as I feel I've hijacked the OP's thread.

Susan, I hope the catastrophic rawness begins to ease for you soon. And I hope you are being looked after. Take care.

oh and i don't think that there is any implication re the holiday that they should get on with life either. in fact funnily enough i find the suggestion that that is the implication rather offensive as i know that was the last intention on the part of the people i knew who did just that when they lost their children. so, q.e.d. on the one size not fitting all thing.

x-posts

Great link Zeno - really helpful.

I do think that there isn't a lot of positivity about human nature on this thread. It seems to be automatically assumed by a lot of people that people are being ignorant, arrogant, self-absorbed, uncaring etc etc. I may be wrong to try and see the best in people, and there are always 'bad eggs', but I truly believe that the vast majority of people mean well, and I feel sad that so many people think the opposite.

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I too dont really accept that its hard to know what to say, or more probably dont accept that whatever you say may be wrong,or worse, to ignore the subject/person altogether.
I think it was Aitch who said something along the lines of "....treating the bereaved like you would want to be treated yourself". Perhaps if we kept this uppermost in our minds, the awquardness(sp), would be taken out of the situation.
Sometimes, no words are needed-a hug can say everything, and offering pratical help.
I agree with another poster who said as a nation we are incredibly bad about acknowledging the process of death, dying and bereavement.
Schools and parents spend time educating their dc on how life is created, we need to do the same with the subject of death.

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The difficulty with 'treating the bereaved as you'd want to be treated yourself' is that not eveyrone feels the same. Comments referring to god and heaven and all that are insensitive and maddening to those who don't have a religious faith (and probably to those who do) but some bereaved people do find talk of heaven and angels comforting. As has been said by several posters, some of those who have suffered a loss would rather be left alone, have the subject avoided, others want to talk: it's not possible to know how an acquaintance is going to feel and react in advance.
Bereaved people often hate the whole world - the feeling isunderstandable but the rest of the world doesn't deserve condemnation for not percieving the loss of an acquaintance as at the centre of their worlds.

There was a lady on GMTV I think...(only on in the background) this morning who was talking about her son who had been killed in Afghanistan (another one...!)

She was talking about how he was very special and that he had "been taken away so that he could be an angel and look after us all..."

Although I can never understand such blind acceptance of what must be utterly heartbreaking (and in other circumstances I would dismiss her as a loon...), I remember thinking "whatever gets you through it"

I would never, ever in a million years say something so trite to someone who was bereaved though...if somebody ever said something like that to me I would be very angry and disappointed in them

what is it you want, sassy? someone to get angry at you so that you can really let rip at them? go ahead, if it will make you feel better for a couple of minutes it will be worth it, i suppose.

(btw you assume a lot about your innate understanding of my friends' circumstances but i'm not going to get into it with you why you are wrong.)

I genuinely believe that however stupid or insensitive someone's comments it is almost always better than being ignored.

One friend has said to me twice now 'they are in a better place'. It did make me cross, as I am not religious in the slightest and don't believe there is a better place. However, I can rationalise that she is very religious and genuinely believes what she says and that she feels it would comfort her in the same situation. At least she acknowledged what happened.

The only time anything anyone has said has genuinely made me angry was a doctor at the hospital when I was readmitted with suspected retained placenta at 5 1/2 weeks post birth. She said 'it was better this way as extremely premature babies are at such risk of things like cerebal palsy and that would have made my life really hard'. I think I found the comment especially unacceptable as it was from a doctor who I felt should have known better.

I can't help but think though, that at the end of the day, nothign anyone says, doesn't say, does or doesn't do will actually make things easier or harder for me or bring my daughters back. So, it really doesn't matter.

Sassysusan, I think anyone who has'nt experiencd the loss of a child, even if they sit and really think how it might feel, no matter how compassionate they are, will only ever feel a tiny fraction of what you are feeling, so I say deal with your grief in any way you want to and for as long as it takes and to hell with what anyone thinks.