Light up every room.

“…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

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'

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

Babs03

Oh c’mon, if people can’t be nice when a young person has died it reflects much more badly on us than anyone else. And is never for the young person who died but loved ones left behind who will be comforted by the kind words of others.

I agree. The suffering families go through when someone young dies stays with them forever. It is a very difficult trauma to work through

bridie54

eggplant I’m so with you on the teddies and flowers.
Such a waste at the end of the day. Why not make a donation to a charity the deceased would have liked or had supported themselves.

Yes, exactly. Having being raised in a very austere and non showy religion, I find some of this stuff tricky.

eggplant I’m so with you on the teddies and flowers.
Such a waste at the end of the day. Why not make a donation to a charity the deceased would have liked or had supported themselves.

At least they didn’t go over the rainbow bridge 😬😬😬

Whatever little bit of comfort anybody can gain , its fine.

I'm not keen on the teddies and flowers and balloons but each to their own.

I didn’t take the post as offensive.
As a previous post says, offence is taken.
I do agree that some things said after a death ( particularly to the media) are trotted out so frequently now that, to me, just sound disingenuous.
I can definitely see where the OP is coming from.

The thing is, it is sometimes it is true. When my sister died in a road accident, aged 45. We had a huge response to her death.

Her job heading a heritage orgaisation meant she met a lot of people through work, but we had people coming up to us saying, that in the course of work, people you worked with did die, but they had been shocked to find how utterly devastated they were by my sister's death, because there was just something about her.

Twenty five years after her death I met soneone through a heritage charity I volunteered with, and in conversation it came up that my sister had been the director of this charity. It turned out this man had known her and worked with her and he spoke about her with warmth and enthusiasm, as if he had seen her a month before, Like all the others he said that when ever she came into a meeting or ran an event, something happened. She was not a noisy person, she was quite quiet, but if she was in a room, the whole altmosphere lit up and everyone acted amicably.

Sometimes there are people, who do light up the room when they go in.

For chlldren I think that is always true, they are part of a family, and when they enter the room everyone does focus on them. I know that is true with my grandchildren. they do indeed light up the room when they come into it.

Ok, I stand rebuked.
I am truly sorry if I have upset anyone.
It is a very personal opinion, I am not at all a horrible person , well not very often.
And yes I am a grump today.

My mum had several grandaughters- two of them she claimed, always brought sunshine into the house when they went to visit. The others? Not so much so.

Some people just do carry light around with them, children especially but not everyone notices the light, which is a shame.

I have a dear, dear friend, who certainly doesn’t light up every room, so I wouldn’t be able to say that about her 😂 she doesn’t find joy in anything or anybody. Her health is not the best, so who can blame her ? But she will be there for you in a heartbeat, if you are having a crisis. I know that.
However, it takes some doing, to get a hearty laugh out of her. She is a ‘moaning minny’ but we all love her.

It's OK to have a grump. Full stop.

Nobody has to respond to someone else's grump if they don't like it.

Is okay to have a grump but surely there are countless other things to grump about.

*not