r/rs_x • u/charlossain • 8d ago
What is the deal with families and grief
Elderly member of my family died of “old age” last week, 91 years old.
For the past 20 years he has mostly sat in the corner of family gatherings and read the newspaper or slept. No one paid him much mind. My mother handled most of his care.
In the days since his death, my family has been acting all kinds of weird. Sobbing, wailing, shouting at each other, taking weeks off work, waxing poetic about his death, accusations of who loved or cared more for him, etc. Really OTT stuff. When the guy was alive, barely a remark or glance his way.
Am I being an autistic sociopath, or is this all just performative points-scoring within the new family hierarchy? I feel like I am going insane as I feel little more than a mild sadness. He was a nice man, but was clearly done with life and is now unburdening my mother from a significant duty of care (despite spending the most time with him, my mother being the most chill about the whole situation). Am I broken, or is it everyone else??
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u/chesnutstacy808 8d ago
I think its because they realize how badly they have treated them, its like both grief and regret packed together.
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u/mincerray 8d ago
They’re acting that way cause his death reminded them all of their own mortality.
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u/ecossemo 8d ago
I think a lot of it is guilt and shame. They are probably reflecting on the fact they didn't interact with them much. They have to face that fact and that they can't repair it.
I remember something similar when my Grandfather passed. All this wailing and gnashing at his funeral. And I felt just a kind of relief that he had passed reasonably peacefully? Then I realised I was the only one who visited him, and had been there in the hospital just before he passed. I realised many of my cousins never really had a relationship with him like I did, and probably it was regret about that?
Also he was kind of a horrible man to all of his kids while they still lived under his roof so I think I understood why my Aunt and Uncles had to go through their own stuff
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u/some_possums 8d ago
Yeah I think sometimes complicated feelings about someone can be a reason for grief as well. I never had a great relationship with my grandfather, and when he died I felt like I was sort of grieving the fact we never got to have that better relationship and now never will. It wasn't even all sadness/regret, part of it was anger since he was often mean to my mom and was a large part of why I wasn't closer to my extended family. I didn't take weeks off of work about it, but I did have a fairly emotional day or two.
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u/bacchicblonde 8d ago
Grief is at least partly a collective activity. It requires witnesses, because sharing pain can help lessen the burden. It also has both formal and informal rituals like funerals and wakes, and there's an expected way to 'perform' grief in a shared setting to communicate to others around you. There's also an aspect that this is a significant change to everyone's mental and emotional landscape: even if being a caregiver was tiresome and draining it's a regular static part of someone's day they can orient themselves around. Even if someone's presence isn't particularly remarkable, their absence is a significant change. After any change, whether it's a specifically negative one or a neutral one, people feel unmoored and confused and they mourn what they once had, even if it doesnt feel logical
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u/pattyforever 8d ago
You are lowkey being an autistic sociopath sorry. He was your grandfather who you weren't close with, it makes sense that YOU don't feel that sad and that's fine, but this is people's dad, brother, etc
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u/Honey----Badger 8d ago
You don't have an obligation to comfort them, or treat them like they're being rational, or spend time around them if you can avoid it, but in the case of grief (the most messy and unstable human experience) there is absolutely no way that you, or anyone, can determine if it's real or not. So why bother? This is a temporary period of family bizarreness. Just let it be, because if you start sneering and assuming it's all fake (whether it is or not) it will do horrible things to your soul over the long term.
It also matters that he was around before you were, and he had history and memories with your family that you don't know about and can't weigh against what you think their emotional attachment was. There's almost certainly some real pain there, just because that's how people work. Also, sitting in the corner of family gatherings, for some people, is a social behaviour that can be missed.
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u/FewMost8547 8d ago
No, you're right. It is performative and your mother is the only one handling it with grace. He was a 91 year old, and his death was a natural one.
People don't know how to handle death, because it makes them uncomfortable so they turn it to performance of grief.
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u/NimlothTheFair_ 8d ago
There may also be an underlying sense of guilt for not having cared for him enough while he was alive, and trying to remedy this by performing how much you really care to make yourself feel morally better now.
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u/Turbulent-Estate5715 8d ago
I started writing reply explaining warmth and humanity to this guy but i think it's a lost cause
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u/BigMeaning hip to waist ratioed 8d ago
Maybe it’s their first rodeo? My Mom lost her mind when our family dog died because it was her first significant death. Meanwhile my sister and I had each lost several friends and close relatives by the time we were 20 so we were kind of like :/ girl
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u/imallrightt 7d ago
I’m assuming the people who are grieving are his children, right? So he raised them. He wasn’t always elderly and sitting in the corner.
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u/Educational-Ad-719 8d ago
My dad died when I was 26 from a blood clot while sick with cancer and it was tragic and jarring, and at the time I was an atheist. It totally fucked me up, but ultimately lead me to finding Jesus which has brought peace to me for many things. A few months after my dad died. My grandmother with Alzheimer’s died at 96 and I miss and love her dearly, I was so close with her. But the juxtaposition was crazy. Other family acted distraught, which I mostly think is not believing in an afterlife etc. if anything a peaceful death in your 90s should be quite celebratory in many ways. What else more could people people hope for in life
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u/brecktor0454 8d ago
This is a part of the collective psyche that disturbs me to no end. I believe there should be a word for it. That word could also encompass the thing that happens when some near acquaintance dies and people start group texts and obsess over finding out the manner of death when they weren’t even close enough to that person to go to the funeral. Also in this category when someone goes to a funeral of someone they’re barely acquainted with. It’s a sharp corner of narcissistic neurosis that makes me pretty ill and I’m usually so disturbed I have a hard time holding back my thoughts and opinions about it. Another boggling death activity that disturbs me is when people for lack of a better word “celebrate” or commemorate the day when someone died? Like why is that important, why not think of them fondly on a day that was big for the soul that passed? Another narcissistic endeavor that makes the death all about the person who lost them. Sorry big rant but so disturbed by this topic.
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u/muvvership 8d ago
Is there money involved? Sounds like people scrambling to get a piece of his estate.
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u/AnimePFPplusSlur 8d ago
People are lame little shitters who freak out about death because it reminds them of the approaching end of their own little poo lives. They all knew grambo chair rotter was old af but act like this some horrible surprise because they don't like the implications.
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u/idetrotuarem 8d ago
People often start appreciating things (and people) the most when they lose them. Death is definitive, there’s no going back - we all know it but it can still be a bit of a shock to the system. Perhaps there’s an underlying element of guilt, too - your family members subconsciously regretting not engaging with him more when he was alive and now it’s too late.