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Bereavement

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Why see them after they’re gone?

51 replies

nevertherightweather · 03/08/2026 08:22

I lost my mum 4 years ago. She was fairly young (had me very young) and should have had decades left. But cancer took her and I am heart broken.
I remember the day we had a call and was asked to go to hospital. So we hurried straight there. When we arrived we were put in a room and waited there for ages. Finally someone came and told us my lovely mum had a heart attack (due to cancer encroaching on her heart) and died. I was (still am) devastated because I never truly believed she would leave us. Next thing was “let’s go and see her”. And so I saw her there, lifeless and gone. It was awful. It haunts me to this day.

Do you think it’s really necessary to see your loved one after they’re gone? I don’t know. My partner thinks is but didn’t say why. I think about this horrid day a lot.
what do you think?

OP posts:
Ilovelurchers · 04/08/2026 18:34

Sorry for the loss of your lovely mom!

As others have said, it's absolutely personal choice. My dad died at the start of this year, and my brother, mom and I were all in the room with him when this happened, but we did also make the choice to go to the funeral home to spend some time with the body once it was prepared for cremation - I think we all found comfort in seeing what a beautiful job they had done of dressing him in his best suit, and making him look presentable and at peace - and my daughter and I had embroidered him some handkerchiefs (he had dementia and had an obsession with handkerchiefs - they made him very happy!) and it meant a lot to me to put them in his pocket when I went to say goodbye, so I knew he would have them with him on his final journey.

I have just reread what I have written there and you wouldn't believe that I am normally a fairly rational, unsentimental person! But these things gave me great emotional comfort at an awful time. I would not previously have expected to feel like this - it was all very instinctual.

DD's dad lost his dad a couple of years ago - he wasn't with him when he died, sadly - and he said he was offered the chance to view the body and had zero interest in doing so - he could think of nothing worse! He was very close to my own dad so I offered him the chance to go to the funeral home to see my dad too, and again, he had zero desire to and was surprised I asked. I totally understood and respected this.

I think it's important to offer the chance to grieving relatives where possible/appropriate, but there should be absolutely no judgement or pressure if one chooses not to.

And thank you for starting the thread, OP. I think it's important that we talk more about what happens when people die, both in practical and emotional terms, as death is one of the few things that's certain in life, and yet it's rarely discussed, which in my opinion makes grieving even harder than it need to be.

I hope you find peace and comfort in ways that work for you, OP.

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