Light up every room.

If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. Agree with the balloons though. Far better to plant a tree perhaps?

I think teddies and flowers are fine as expressions of sympathy and love, but we do have a park near us where people can dedicate a bench to a loved one in their memory, this is a lovely idea but people then treat them like a grave and decorate them with teddies, candles, plants and flowers, so is no room to sit and who fancies sitting on what has effectively become a shrine anyway. Dedicating trees or plants is a much better idea.

What one person regards as "nice" may not be the "nice" to someone else. Who is to decide? People need to stop taking offence because someone objects to a certain turn of phrase being, in their opinion, trotted out in a sugared fashion.

That's all this OP was about!

Yeesh!

Besides, sometimes things that aren't "nice" need saying – stories of injustices, for example.

I’m with Baggs on this, we can have a grump or state our own opinion on any topic, it’s a forum, that’s what it’s for.
The lit up every room/ sunny personality seems to be trotted out dutifully for anyone who dies now when reported on tv( even the old and grumpy).
Writing that on a bereavement card to someone you know is different tho and could be true or just meant to convey a crumb of comfort.I have known quite a few who fitted the bill and a few who were the opposite and the lights went out when they entered a room.

Baggs I find this thread horrible, it was written on a public forum so I have the right to disagree.
Also you stated that you were not offended, but some posters may well be, we are all different and we all have different reactions and emotions.

To really answer the OP, yeah I think it’s a press thing.

We can’t only write things that we’re sure won’t offend someone on here.In any case people are offended by even mild things at times!

Baggs

What one person regards as "nice" may not be the "nice" to someone else. Who is to decide? People need to stop taking offence because someone objects to a certain turn of phrase being, in their opinion, trotted out in a sugared fashion.

That's all this OP was about!

Yeesh!

Agree with you Baggs and you too Oreo. I think there’s too much ‘policing’ and potential shutting down/cancelling of opinion (if some feel they can get away with it) these days. GN used to be much more robust.

Usedtobeblonde I don't find your post at all offensive and I do agree with you. I think we are living in a society where we can't talk openly about death and it somehow has to be sanitised with euphemisms and trite phrases. When I am gone, I very much doubt anyone will say that I 'lit up any room I entered' because it wouldn't be true. Whoever writes my eulogy will have plenty of material for dark humour

Isn't there are meme that has a photo of a plaque on a memorial bench that says something along the lines of ;So and so was a good egg but was awful when she was hungry'

“…debate in public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open”

A quote from the US Supreme Court in 1964 considering arrests and harassment of Martin Luther King in 1960 as unjust”

“uninhibited, robust, and wide-open

Pressed post too soon.

uninhibited, robust, and wide-open

is how things should be on GN. Nobody is forced to join in any discussion that isn’t “nice” enough for them.

Why would you post this. To lose a child under any circumstance is unthinkable. Our children do light up our lives, anyone knows that. Without them it must be do very hard. Be kind to people, it hasn't happened to you but surely you've empathy for those that have.

I am so sorry that you have never met such a person in your long life. I have. It is not a press thing. It is for real. There are only certain people who can be described like this an no, it is not a young age thing. Might be a child. Might be an elder. I hope sometime you are blessed to have known a person such as this. I was.

I cannot say I am particularly aware of the phrase 'lit up every room' but I could forgive anyone for the words they use following the death of a child, and the decorations they place on the grave. Child deaths are rare but they are truly shocking, and if words bring some comfort to the bereaved let it be.

Our children do light up our lives, anyone knows that. Without them it must be do very hard. Be kind to people, it hasn't happened to you but surely you've empathy for those that have.

This is how you feel, Allsorts, and it is fine. But it does not suit everyone. I find the phrase about children, or anyone, "lighting up" my life distasteful, by which I mean such a phrase is not to my taste.
I would not use it, I understand both that it appeals to some people and that it irritates others, as the OP intimated.

It is not unkind to say all this.

Losing a child has happened to me. Much as I love all my children, I would never say they lit up my life. That phrase feels totally inadequate to me.

If other people want to use it, that's fine. If other people think it's too sugary (or whatever), that's also fine. How about everyone just being accepting of differences without accusing people who disagree with them of unkindness?

And it's still okay for someone to have a grump. People having grumps happens a lot on Gransnet, especially about the words and expressions people use.

biglouis

I also find it amazing that every child who died prematurely had such a wonderful, friendly sunny personality and was beloved by their teachers and classmates. But perhaps having been wise and selfless enough not to have children I am a mite cynical of all their little angels.

Little angels my ...
Look at that lad who went missing in Tenerife a few short months ago, that turned out to have been a right little sh!t!!
Ok, he MAY have been trying to turn his life around, but then he ends up with a bloke who had been in prison for trying to turn Wales into his own private dr*gs den!!
Well, you get my point!

I am going to a celebration, organised by her partner, of my dead daughter's life later this month. I will not speak publicly at it. Words are simply no use to my grief. There is nothing I could say that would not be too shallow in my opinion. What I am doing in order to cope is another matter.

Do not accuse other people because they aren't the same as you.

Such phrases are designed to comfort those who are grieving the death of a loved one. Surely that is all that matters !? The original post was unnecessary, why send it in the first place?

I know they say we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but why the heck not?
If they've been nasty child a'sers or r*pists etc, why paint them as good people?

Why not tell the truth and say they had some good friends, were liked by a few,could be funny etc instead if painting them to be some angelic beings?
It's a bit like CVs these days, the dole office had me as doing stuff I'd never even heard of!!

Shelflife

Such phrases are designed to comfort those who are grieving the death of a loved one. Surely that is all that matters !? The original post was unnecessary, why send it in the first place?

A lot of what is said is unnecessary. What a lot of people don't understand is that free speech means you have to put up with people saying what you regard as unnecessary in order to safeguard your own freedom to say what someone else thinks is unnecessary.

Besides, having a grump about a turn of phrase you don't like, when you're having a bad day anyway, probably is necessary to the person saying it. Get off her back! She has apologised! What more do you oh so kind people want? Just carry on moaning...um... unnecessarily.

Yeesh, I say, again!

AS I said up thread. My sister lit up a room when she came in, so many people told us so.

I have also experienced it myself with a friend who died recently. Once again, so many people attended the funeral, smply because her personality was so magnetic and their was a charge in the air when she was around. I found myself totally devastated by her death, because of the ability she had to light up a room.

I would say my youngest D has that quality, fortunately she is still with us but when DH used the phrase in his Father of the Bride speech, it was no meaningless cliché .

Both of those stories, rosies and mon are lovely and I'm glad you experienced the comfort of it.

This still doesn't mean everyone has to like the phrase and that it's not okay to grump about it.

There are qualities just as valuable but more subtle and difficult to express in words. That is why it doesn't appeal to me (and quite a few other people, I suspect).