Light up every room.

Athrawes and chocolatepudding what a terrible time that was for you
The tragic deaths of young children weigh on the soul for a lifetime.There really are no appropriate words either then or now but people being kind and helpful at the time would have helped am sure.

Our DD1 died suddenly age 7 months just before Christmas in the 1970s. After the funeral I picked up the Christmas issue of the local rag and there on the front page was an article at least 3 inches long - about how my DD "had collapsed and died and was rushed to hospital".........um I was there and the ambulance crew could not revive her and they kindly waited for my PIL to see here before they took her to hospital.

THE WRONG WORDS

and I have spent over 40 years just wanting to get hold of the journalist and the editor to hurt them back...never believe anything in the press or the media.

It is always difficult to find the right words to comfort a bereaved family but please at least just send your sympathy.

JaneJudge

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'

I'll remember that for DH (should he go first!!)
aka Hangry!

Aber57

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 agree

I do cringe when I see all those helium balloons which are so bad for the environment plus the flowers wrapped in plastic.
I know people mean well and want to express their sorrow when tragedy occurs but planting trees in memory of someone is so much more meaningful.

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.

👏👏👏

When our twins died a few days after they were born premature many years ago my friends were amazing and helped with shopping, moving out the little cots and kept me company. My husbands boss - a doctor - had also had a similar experience many years before ours and he lent us their rather large parrot for a while for us to look after when they had a short holiday - and it really helped to have something to look after for a while and come to grips with life. None of them said any of the 'niceties' that people seem to say today but were there for us which meant an awful lot.

Some people have totally missed the point. It is not un-nice to not particularly like a certain turn of phrase. I am sure the OP and every subsequent poster on this thread would be perfectly "nice" if presented with the news of a young person dying in whatever words that news was expressed.

English is a very rich language. Achieving "niceness" in situations where it is needed is very easy and I'm sure most people do.

I find it interesting that the ones who go on most about being kind or nice are the most critical of variants from their limited and strict definitions. Would that they were as gracious as the OP.

A dear young friend of mine died a couple of years ago. She had been ill with bowel cancer, then breast cancer and finally a brain tumour. Everyone who knew her was devastated. I don't know about lighting up a room, but she was a truly lovely person. I never knew her to do anything nasty and I never heard a word against her.

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.

👏👏👏👏

A nice gracious response Usedtobeblonde 👏🏻👏🏻

I shall draw a line under this now and not read the thread anymore.
I realise I have upset a lot of people and that really was far from my intention.
It is still a phrase I really do not like reading but as it brings much comfort to so many I shall accept it in the spirit in which it is written.

My friend died aged 14. I can truly say she lit up every room, she had everything, clever, pretty, loving, funny., except health.. nobody who knew her will ever forget her. And many I have known and loved were like her., something shone, I can't explain. But I have been so grateful for the comfort such words can bring.

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).

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 .

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.

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!

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!!

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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.