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How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

 Azza007 wrote:
How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

If you weren't close your feelings may not be strong. Thats ok. There isn't a "how you should feel." There is only how you feel.
Things may come up later.


Me myself, I am old school - massive drinking.

At this same stage when my younger brother died, I was the same as you mate.

Most of my family is fairly close, so once I got home to them, and things really sank in, just reminiscing in each others memories of him really helped most of us out.

I know you say you weren't close to your grandad, but listen to the stories that your family tell of him, perhaps you'll gain a greater understanding of him, and while you may never feel that you were all that close to him, you'll have more to hold onto him in your memories.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Azza007 wrote:
How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

If you weren't close your feelings may not be strong. Thats ok. There isn't a "how you should feel." There is only how you feel.
Things may come up later.


Me myself, I am old school - massive drinking.

Yeah, it depends on the person, really, but I found that when a good mate passed away, the first thing to come was numbness, almost a sense of disbelief. The emotions came later, and for that, maybe having some friends or family around might help you.
Honestly, what Frazz said is on the mark in regards to how you "should" feel.

 Frazzled wrote:
There isn't a "how you should feel." There is only how you feel. .

This. There's no one answer for how you should feel or how you should cope with it.

You do it your way at your own pace.

 Azza007 wrote:
How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

Yeah, I had a similar thing when my dad went, yet when my aunt died suddenly a few years back I was devastated. It was quite an unexpected reaction. Things like music (especially music) and film, or animals in pain typically move me more than actual 'human' stuff. Not sure why, really.

My dad died quite a protracted death of liver failure, but the whole thing just felt like a massive inconvenience. I didn't like him much, to be fair. My aunt on the other hand... Yeah, still hurts. It's weird. Grief affects you in different ways and at different times.



Sorry to hear about your grandad, mate.

As has been said you have to cope with it in your own way and everyone copes differently.

My family throws parties when people die. We figure what better way to celebrate a life then to celebrate?

My personal way of dealing with tragedies and loss is to get angry then to suck it up. Then I go do some exercise with your pent up anger, then later on in the evening have a drink in their name. Remember the good times and fight through any pain you feel, which might come later. Also talking with family and friends about it is key. I have a good friend that I can tell literally anything to(he'd even help me bury a body if I needed to).

When my grandma passed, I felt absolutely nothing. She was a mean spirited woman, though she was my grandma and I still mourned her loss with a few beers.

Sorry to hear about your loss. Drive on and stay strong.

RIP.

How do you cope with loss?

One day at a time.

I'm pretty ok with loss, usually. My family isn't a particularly close one, we are scattered about around the globe, so when one of us dies it's usually someone that I havnt seen for 5-10 years.
The last time I lost someone was my cousin, last year in a car crash in Northern France. I was sad when I heard but carried on with my day. Got showered and went to work, but halfway through my morning I went to absolute pieces. Tears, sobbing, the whole 9 yards. It was odd because up to that point I hadn't really felt anything. It was like being hit by a 'sadness brick', and I was completely unprepared for it.

I made my excuses, went home and got royally hammered. That was my coping mechanism for that particular loss, I would say that everyone is different.

Sorry about your Grandad though fella, take it easy and take it as it comes.

As others have said, take it as you can. Everyone deals with grief differently.

When my grandfather passed away, it was after a long decline into dementia. I had said my goodbyes long before he passed on. The hard part was keeping the happy memories in mind, remembering who he was, rather then the person he was right before he died.

Both of my grandmothers died a little more suddenly, and I didn't get a good chance to say farewell. I still get a little melancholy around Christmas eve, when the one I was closer to passed away. I find it helps to focus on the good times. I was never that close with my other grandmother, and sometimes I feel a little bad about that, but life moves on.

I'm lucky. I got a chance to relate with my grandparents as an adult. 3/4 of them anyway, my mother's father died when I was ~3, so I only have vague memories. The rest were alive and well when I was at college. We even got some 4 generation shots with my grandfather and my son, and while his mind was already going, he still realized what was going on at that point.

To bring this rambling to an end, I'll just finish with a "Hang in there" As they say, "time heals all wounds" so while it might seem bad now, life does go on. Just try to focus on the good stuff.

Don't let anyone tell you how you SHOULD react to loss.

When my dad died I was just numb. My reaction was to get on with it. Do what needed to be done, sorting out papers, stuff like that. I ate, sleeped and went on with my life. I was very upset and still am at times 3 years later.

Apparently this was wrong. My bother and mum were both in tears, unable to cope, unable to eat etc. and got very annoyed at me. Because of this I then got no leway from them when I was angry or upset and got no say in the funeral because they thought my diffrent way of dealing with it meant that I didn't care. Because of this I still find it difficult now.

Don't let anyone tell you what to feel. You feel what you feel.

I deal with it by realizing that everyone is going to die eventually, so why get too upset about it. Sure I miss my relatives that died, but times change and you move on.

No crying needed. Be excellent to each other and Party on dudes!

 Frazzled wrote:

 Azza007 wrote:
How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

If you weren't close your feelings may not be strong. Thats ok. There isn't a "how you should feel." There is only how you feel.
Things may come up later.


Me myself, I am old school - massive drinking.

^ I'm with him.

My dad died 8 years ago. I was there when it happened. I just put it behind me and ploughed on. I had to - the rest of my family were wrecks and couldn't even be composed enough to CALL for an ambulance. We weren't exactly close, though.

I remember barely being sad at all when my grandparents died, because i knew it was coming, they barely talked for so long that they where dead long before we cremated them.
And my dad is dying, i still dont know what is going to happen there, being one of the few near him i will have to deal with alot of the stuff, Funeral and such.

Stoicism and unfiltered cigarettes (this is a much better solution than drinking; nicotine is much better at killing that numb ache, and unfiltered cigarettes are rather unpleasant, so you have both the whole catharsis thing going on, and you won't want to keep smoking; they also hit like a doubleshot of whiskey crossed with a blow to the head, but don't leave you out of commission for more than a few minutes).

Don't just shove it away, though. Accept it and conquer it. Force yourself to comprehend the loss, and then bear the pain that brings, and in the end you'll be stronger for it.

Azza007 wrote:How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

Sometimes that is how it is, it might sink in later.

Azza007 wrote:How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:At this same stage when my younger brother died, I was the same as you mate.

Most of my family is fairly close, so once I got home to them, and things really sank in, just reminiscing in each others memories of him really helped most of us out.

I know you say you weren't close to your grandad, but listen to the stories that your family tell of him, perhaps you'll gain a greater understanding of him, and while you may never feel that you were all that close to him, you'll have more to hold onto him in your memories.

I can say I was close to my grandad, but after he died we found his footlocker from ww2. Warjournal, blackbook with addresses of guys in his outfit and places to go on liberty, photos etc. You'd be surprised what you don't know about a person.

Frazzled wrote:

 Azza007 wrote:
How do you guys cope with loss? My Grandad died early hours of the morning and while I am sad he died, I am not upset, missing him or really feeling anything. Surely I should be feeling something other than numbness. We didn't have a close relationship as he was never the typical Grandad figure. Just wanted to know how you guys cope. Is this normal? I haven't shed a tear or much of anything.

If you weren't close your feelings may not be strong. Thats ok. There isn't a "how you should feel." There is only how you feel.
Things may come up later.


Me myself, I am old school - massive drinking.

Frazz is right, there is no "way you should be" don't worry if you think how you feel is whether or not what others think you should or shouldn't feel

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I'm pretty ok with loss, usually. My family isn't a particularly close one, we are scattered about around the globe, so when one of us dies it's usually someone that I havnt seen for 5-10 years.
The last time I lost someone was my cousin, last year in a car crash in Northern France. I was sad when I heard but carried on with my day. Got showered and went to work, but halfway through my morning I went to absolute pieces. Tears, sobbing, the whole 9 yards. It was odd because up to that point I hadn't really felt anything. It was like being hit by a 'sadness brick', and I was completely unprepared for it.

I made my excuses, went home and got royally hammered. That was my coping mechanism for that particular loss, I would say that everyone is different.

Sorry about your Grandad though fella, take it easy and take it as it comes.

Yes, when my grandma went, I was numb, and didn't really feel a great loss even though we were close (most awesome grandma ever, but so is everyone's) but nearly two months went by and I was driving from one service call to another and everything hit me like a trainload of rocks, I started tearing up and it got hard to breath and I had to pull off the road and gather myself.

So we all deal with grief in our own ways, and it affects us all differently.

Cope with loss however you cope with loss.
People deal with it in their own way. Some people wail ect ,some people don't, make sure you do deal with it in some way, locking it inside to deal with it in a few years is possibly the worst thing you can do.
That being said, not having much of a reaction could be very indicative of your relationship with said dead person. I had a mean spirited grandmother, she died, and to be honest i wasn't cut at all, at the funeral i cried because my mum was very upset, but that was all.

Don't let anyone tell you how you should feel, in fact blowing up at them might be a good release .

The most important lesson i think for the future is next time a relative is sick (in hospital or wherever) and you are fairly sure they are going to die make sure you take the time and space to say goodbye. this seems to be very cathartic, and save you the trouble of feeling guilty about unresolved issues between people. It doesn't take alot to say I'm sorry or goodbye, but that small action can save you years of guilt.

I didn't cry when either my grandmother or my cat died.

That isn't to say that I wasn't sad when she died. Its just that I didn't see much sense in getting depressed or breaking down over it.

My grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer a year or so before she died. Everytime I saw her she looked much worse than the previous time. It got to the point where everytime I told her goodbye it was like my last goodbye, because I honestly didn't think she'd be there next month when I came home from college again.

So I was mentally prepared for her dieing and even a little relieved when she passed away piecefully in her sleep.

Everyone dies eventually, and if they're old and have lived a good fruitfull life by the time they die then I see no real reason to mourn.


I didn't really mourn the cat either. He was a wonderfull cat and we got along great (I think he liked me best). But in the end we had about 9 good years together and I had no regrets.
other than the fact that my youngest brother objected to giving him a viking funeral (the cats name was thor), so I had to bury him outside in winter when the ground was so darn hard that I had to spend an hour digging a liitle hole that the darn cat didn't even fit into properly because he had died sort of curled up so I had to step on him to get him to fit into the hole...

In the end I think all a person can do is be thankfull for the time they got to spend together with their loved ones.

I was devastated when my dog died, but didn't feel much for my grandma on my dad's side of the family's death.

I had both of my grandmothers die on the same day right around this most recent Christmas. They were both very good people, and I guess I was fairly fond of them. When I got both calls, about six hours apart from one another, my reaction was the same. I simply acknowledged the news, and went back to doing what I was doing. Never felt any differently, or anything of the sort.
It sounds kind of cold, and maybe it is, but that's just how I react.

Sometimes it takes awhile to kick in. When my dad died, I was fine for about 3 days, and then it hit me. We were definitely not close - estranged was how I'd describe it.

If this is your first major family death, some people will react... poorly when they hear, to you. Like you have a disease and you're catching. This will make you mad, but you have to try and realize that death just makes some people lose their gak and it's not really their fault, try and let that go if it happens.

 Cheesecat wrote:
I was devastated when my dog died, but didn't feel much for my grandma on my dad's side of the family's death.

Sigh. You know, I was going to mention similar and decided it would make me sound callous - my dog died about a week ago and I was way, way more upset about my dog then my father. But if someone else did it first - then yes - that's how I felt. My dog's death utterly crushed me, my father's just made me feel - confused, and angry, and regretful, and yes, sad - but not to the same extent.

Of course, my dog loved me faithfully, unhesitatingly, and unconditionally from when she was a squirming puppy until the morning she died 9 years later. My father... well, not so much, at any point.

 Ouze wrote:
Sometimes it takes awhile to kick in. When my dad died, I was fine for about 3 days, and then it hit me. We were definitely not close - estranged was how I'd describe it.

If this is your first major family death, some people will react... poorly when they hear, to you. Like you have a disease and you're catching. This will make you mad, but you have to try and realize that death just makes some people lose their gak and it's not really their fault, try and let that go if it happens.

 Cheesecat wrote:
I was devastated when my dog died, but didn't feel much for my grandma on my dad's side of the family's death.

Sigh. You know, I was going to mention similar and decided it would make me sound callous - my dog died about a week ago and I was way, way more upset about my dog then my father. But if someone else did it first - then yes - that's how I felt. My dog's death utterly crushed me, my father's just made me feel - confused, and angry, and regretful, and yes, sad - but not to the same extent.

Of course, my dog loved me faithfully, unhesitatingly, and unconditionally from when she was a squirming puppy until the morning she died 9 years later. My father... well, not so much, at any point.

To be fair my dad's mother was in really bad health and after awhile you couldn't even talk to her as her health got worse she started to only speak in grunts and moans and was often cranky, so I don't exactly have many positive memories towards her despite living in my parents

basement before we sent her to a nursing home or someplace (can't exactly remember the details cause I only saw her when I was very young).

 Fafnir wrote:
I had both of my grandmothers die on the same day right around this most recent Christmas. They were both very good people, and I guess I was fairly fond of them. When I got both calls, about six hours apart from one another, my reaction was the same. I simply acknowledged the news, and went back to doing what I was doing. Never felt any differently, or anything of the sort.
It sounds kind of cold, and maybe it is, but that's just how I react.

This was how I reacted.I acknowledged then went back to watching tv. I had expected it for so long that it wasn't much of a shock. I just find it weird that I expressed more emotion over the death of a patient I had known for less than a month than my Grandad, even though wasn't on shift. This death was the same as my response as a death to a patient I had never looked after before.

Dealing with loss comes to each of us in different ways, but try to keep a bit of a support group around. My grandfather is currently dying (and could go at any moment), but the man he was died a long time ago-he used to come with my grandmother to watch my sister and I when we were younger and my dad was taking care of my mom during hospital visits. He took us camping, to carnivals, even up in a helicopter ride. These days, if he even registers that I'm over visiting, he thinks I'm Emir, the chef on tv. Dementia, Alzheimers, Parkinsons and Bi-Polar disorder. He's got all of them, and hasn't enjoyed life in the past 5 years. When he goes, it will be a blessing for him and for the family who bust ass and take care of him each day. We'll all be sad, but each of us knows he's in a better place, he isn't hurting anymore, and the man he once was has been gone. It'll still be hard, and my mom will be in rough shape for a while, but strangely, I think I'll be okay-as was said by an earlier poster, I kinda said my goodbyes a long time ago, while there was still a glimmer of remembrance within him. I think I was sadder when my best friends' (they're brothers) uncle died. That hurt a lot. You can't plan for who will be the most painful loss, but having a support group can help. And if you have guys (or girls) willing to get drunk with you, play games, and keep you company, then you'll end up being okay.