Things You Should Never, Ever Say Over Text or Email

Thank you
He was a quiet and modest man, the son of a war hero and successful diplomat/intelligence agent, and I am sure was not the eldest son his father wanted him to be. He was packed off to Gordonstoun in his early teens to “toughen him up” and was miserable for the whole time.
As it turned out, he was the only one of his siblings to maintain a happy marriage, withstand some very hard times financially and face over 20 years of poor health,knowing that the outcome, if he lived that long would be a painful decline and death. At least he was spared the worst of that.
But in the courage stakes, he ranked up there with his dad’s DSO, Légion d'Honneur and Croix De Guerre.

Mawbroon I wanted to say too, how very sorry I was to hear about your first baby. That must have been so hard. It can break up a couple but your marriage was so strong. I do hope my message above has not upset you - it is so difficult to decide whether to tell people about it, but I feel selfish not telling a bereaved person. Essentially, it does say that dying is not a horrible experience, even if the bit of life just before it is difficult. I am so glad your Paw (I see the name relevance now -sorry I was so dim!) was peacefully at home with you. Take care of yourself. Lots of love, L

mimiro So sorry to hear your DH passed. Yes I would do what you did. Hope you are ok.

123flump (what a great name!) Thanks for your comment, it reminded me, when I was a Research Fellow we were not supposed to send 'important' info by email without a send/receipt message and if the person didn't receive/open it we had to go to them if they were in our building. There was a general rule that emails were not regarded as the vehicle for important info unless backed up by a check about being received. Obviously too, unless encrypted, they are "postcards" in that the message is open to anyone not just the receiver, so private info should be encrypted.
This was over 10 yrs ago, poss today things have been updated.

I would never send an important message by e mail without checking if I didn't get a reply. So many e mails seem to randomly go into junk mail that it could easily be missed.

I have an aunt in a care home, messages about her go into in mail and junk mail on a roughly 50/50 split, no idea why some get through and some don't and I do try to remember to check junk mail but as they autodelete after a month I can miss them.

dh passed and was a computer geek so using email was almost a requirement
but i sent earlier emails to let them know he was poorly and than mass emall together for updates
called immediates when he was gone but mass emailed the rest.no one was bothered by the form of delivery

Oh MawBroon, you were together so long, you must be like one being. It must seem impossible to take in that his presence, his mind, cannot be touched just by turning round and speaking to him. I do not usually talk about it because I am apprehensive lest it upsets someone, but at the birth of my first baby I haemorrhaged and nearly died. I had an "out of body experience" as people call them. There is not room here to describe it very well. My baby was apparently dead and the midwife had discarded her, putting her on the trolly next to me. There was no doctor on the premises at that moment, but he rushed in a bit later. I went out of my body, through my forehead. I was looking down at myself, laughing, for a while then I went towards a bright white light and there were many people so happy to greet me there. I was suddenly turned round and came back the same way very fast. My baby was alive, my doctor restarted her heart. It was the most wonderful experience and I have never doubted that it was real. Yet I am a hard nosed scientist in other ways. Please believe me, Paw is alive. His spirit or soul is more alive than we are while we are contained in our body. Also I believe he may be near you. If this upsets you Please ignore it. I did not talk about it for several years until a boy we looked after"s brother was killed in a car crash and I asked his mother if she would like me to tell her. She gave me Dr Raymond Moody's book 'Life after Life' about cases he studied which were all incredibly similar, right down to not talking about it. People who have not had it tend to explain it in neurological terms. People who have experienced it, including Neurologists and Neuropsychologists of which I was one, just believe it. It changes a person. With my love.

Yes, to the last question, 3 DDS all married, 2 with children (43, 40 and 36)
We had been married for 47 years, meeting in our first term at St Andrews. He managed to get out of hospital and have his 70th at hone, then died 6 weeks later. At least (for our sakes) we were all with him at the end and he slipped away without any pain.
It is so hard to believe that a person especially one with whom you have shared all your adult life, is no more.
Sorry -going off at a tangent, but I really think few people understand the layers of emotion involved. Yes, you miss your parents, but it is in the nature of things that they will predecease you.
We also lost our first baby (a boy) at 3 weeks 45 years ago but this is different. That was desperately hard hard., but we were young and he was very poorly.
Ah well.

MawBroon I remember that so well, having to tell people as I met them and then needing to comfort them because it was a shock to them. Actually, I'm glad you didn't notice Remembrance Sunday, because it would make each anniversary harder, maybe. Believe it or not, on the day before my husband died I was playing in the band at the War Memorial for the Sunday Remembrance Service. I noticed the Sergeant Major commanding the Uniformed Brigades. The next day he was in my house. He was the Funeral Director the Police used when they found my husband's body, so I decided to stay with his Service. He was a God send. Like you, people thought I was coping so well, but I knew how I really felt. I remember such odd things, like exactly what I said to one person, and the words of another friend and colleague on the phone, word for word. His son had died and he said, "Take the laughs when they come, because they will." He gave me permission to laugh. Things play in front of my mind like a 3D film, what people were wearing, the strange things they gave us. Yet it's over 26 years ago and there have been many terrible deaths since.
I think sudden death is a shock you never really get over. Death from any illness is terrible but at least with some, say with cancer, in my experience, there is time to learn that it is happening and to speak to each other. A year after my husband died a very dear friend died but at least I did have a chance to sit with her and talk and tell her what she meant to me. She got me through the year after my husband's death actually. My dad died also but that was rather quick and I was unable to talk to him as much as I wished. I was his only child. My mother's first child, he adopted. My mother and my half sister gave my father and me a terrible time. Oh how I ramble! Sorry! Do you have children? It sounds as if they have left home if so.
Do take care of your health, eat well, even take supplements, keep warm, because this shock can knock you physically. Don't expect to be coping all the time, be gentle with yourself. Much love.

I can’t even imagine the second year Luzdoh!
I get the feeling that just because I am not bursting into tears all over the place in public (saving that for alone at night, or coming back to an empty house) some people think I am “getting over it” already. I ask you!
Paw died in the early hours of Nov 10. and I can say I have no recollection of that Remembrance Sunday at all. Next year will be the first sad anniversary.
It was all very unreal.
But just as I imagine you would be, I found myself trying to “let people down” lightly. A neighbour from across our village green somehow hadn’t heard - probably because she has enough on her plate as her DH is in the throes of chemo for widespread cancer. She had seen the ambulance outside our house the previous week and cheerfully asked “Everything OK ?”
I felt so bad telling her No, we had lost him and I could only sympathise and yes,understand her predicament because your own personal tragedies tend to block out the rest of the world.

MawBroon I know this is only 3 months since, just realised, my last sentence above sounded as if I thought you were into the second year. Sorry - so much for trying to say things concisely!

Oopsadaisy12 you know what I mean!

Unreservedly MawBroon total Pax. (Is that Pax totalis or something? A bit too long ago now for me, and I gave it up as I didn't like the teacher!) I Do hope you have plenty of friends and family to comfort and help you, it is early days -yet people do somehow forget in the bustle of everyday life. The Minister at my husband's funeral said it's the second year that's harder. People expect you to be back to normal then and support drops away. Lots of love.

Letters too can get lost in the post.
#justsaying

I disagree that the onus was on luzdoh to have checked her emails. Email communication can be dicey - people’s servers can be down, their computers malfunctioning, messages sent to junk etc Unwise to assume that an email sent is an email received. This was an unfortunate accident and the remark made to Luzdoh later about checking her emails was uncalled for IMO. And yes a note by post would have been more appropriate, also IMO

Thank you luzdoh
Pax?

MawBroon Oh my dear Girl! I am so sorry! I thought Paw meant your 'Pa' as in father. No, I'm still quite new, so I haven't read anything about you. You must be in dreadful pain. Like yours, my husband died very suddenly. He was in his mid 50s, it was 11th November, so when poppies come around I can never stop feeling the pain. My husband died before my parents, and it was long ago, but it is like yesterday in so many ways. I'm so very sorry for you MawBroon and I do hope my replies, which were quite "teacherish" as I tried to get through my first experience of explaining the first discussion I initiated, did not hurt you. I thought you were just being extra feisty! I really am so very sorry for any pain I may have caused, I would not have done it for the world. I was also very wobbly about the email and her sarcasm because it happened at my own mother's funeral, so, I learned of his death, was derided, all while waiting for the hearse with my mother's coffin. Probably it combines to be bigger than it really ought to be. I honestly think now I've talked to everyone, I can get over it now. I really did forget why I didn't see the email, that it came from their business address. It was by chance my DD phoned and I asked her if she remembered anything about it and she said. It's of no matter now. What matters is that you take care of yourself. They say it's hard the first year, but you need to be extra kind to yourself for the rest of your life in my experience. Let's be friends. We have something so big in common. Who cares about my stupidity over an email? Take care of yourself and really, I am sorry if I hurt you. With much love

I think the extra information that e-mail was sent from a business address puts a different angle on the thread. I’m a bit wary of emails from unknown person, especially if title is a bit vague.
Sorry Luzdoh that discussion has deteriorated to personal argument.

FFS Not my Fathers death luzdoh
If you had read anything about or by me recently you would realise that Paw was my DH who died before his time last November.
Forgive me if my feelings are raw but 3 months is not long.

Disguised?
Really?

MawBroon; I refer you to my message to Smiless2012
Naturally a thread of discussion will give more details throughout, in order to explain points raised. I apologise, but I had to be reminded (by DD) about how she sent the email. I wasn't focussing on that when I first wrote. Concerning your feelings following your father's death, for which I am very sorry: Both my parents and my husband have died. I will repeat for your benefit, I would not expect a close family member to deal with the dissemination of the news. The emailer lived a few doors away from the grieving family and took it on herself to inform a few people including me. She was often in touch with me by phone.
There is no comparison between the person who notified me by email of this death with anyone who has just lost their father, yourself included. I think you have not been reading properly what has been explained.
As I said, I think enough has been said now. I fear you could be turning this into a personal argument so I will decline to answer your remarks from hereon.

I suppose in the absence of support for your argument luzdoh you might as well take some good advice and move on Good luck
And don’t forget to check your emails in future

BlueBell Thanks! Wise words! I found out - DD reminded me - her email was disguised as she sent it from their business email address which I didn't recognise. As you said it's time to forget it now! many thanks!

Out of interest you refer to “three awful emails”
What were the other two, may I ask?

I would not have said that I am either stupid or pompous and those who know me would I hope, agree. But as the GNetter possibly the most recently bereaved I will reiterate that if you have an email address, open the emails . Not to do so is like ignoring a letter because it MIGHT be junk mail
It seems to me that you know you were in the wrong but rather than and admit it, you are casting around for somebody else to blame (Methinks she doth protest too much)
And quoting Readers Digest? Really?
And to add to your etiquette list, a handwritten letter or even a card with a few words inside are both much more acceptable. In the weeks following Paw’s death I was too shattered to talk on the phone, both physically and emotionally wrung out and the tears came all too readily.

Don’t come all high and mighty, your story has evolved as the posts have progressed and you must know you were in the wrong and that yes, you need to check your emails in future.
“End of” is a perfectly acceptable way of saying “end of the subject” didn’t you find that in your indispensable guide to 21st century etiquette?