I don’t know why this is important to me.
I just know it is.
Both my mum and dad died within three months of each other at the end of 2022 and start of 2023. They were old. Dad had a slow demise, was in pain, and suffered with increasing dementia and would do weird stuff that would unsettle my mum who was a bit younger and had, through necessity, become his main carer. Mum on the other hand, had all her marbles and appeared to be coming slowly to terms with dads death over the three months she survived his death. Then she had a stroke, heart attack and died. All of a sudden.
They were both in their 90s - dad five years older than mum so they both did really well, and although we were obviously sad, having lived a good and mostly comfortable life - it was not really the tragedy I expected. You never know how you will react to the loss of your parent, and certainly the loss of both almost three months apart to the day was unexpected and sad to say the least. But they were old.
I just find it odd that nearly everyone wants to talk about people that have passed, or that have passed away. Saying someone has died seems to be taboo. I don’t know when it became offensive to say death or died rather than “passed”. We live in a world where people complain about political correctness and the “woke brigade” but are also unable to confront death as the reality that will meet us all one day. It’s almost as if saying passed, or passed away, softens the blow and makes death less final and therefore more easy to deal with.
It’s final alright. Come to terms with it.
Grief affects people in different ways. I guess popular belief says you should feel this or that, and my reality has been different. Strange feelings that we have to deal with on a personal basis. Professionals I have encountered in the sphere of my parents death have all been fantastic. Respectful of feelings and the loss of nearest and dearest. They just skirt around the D words though and use many other euphemisms.
I live in Australia, mum and dad were in England - yet this phenomenon has travelled here from over there too so I don’t know if it’s a western culture thing or if other cultures are able to be more direct than us. I don’t have any religion. I don’t have any Christian belief, despite a Christian upbringing. Maybe this is my problem, maybe if I believed in a soul and heaven I would also refer to “passing”.
Maybe not.
Perhaps by saying “passed” it lessens the blow and somehow is more respectful? It’s only words.
Etiquette is a weird thing - especially in respect of something that is such a life event, and something we all have to deal with in one form or another.
My parents both died.
Yours will too.
So will we all.
It can be tragic and there may be some left behind that will feel a massive loss. I think we need to reclaim the D word as it’s more honest, factual, and describes the events. It’s real. And final.
