Some people say the most wildly inappropriate things, and I choose to believe it isn’t deliberate and they have no idea how painful it is.
Don’t get wrong, you may feel like breaking a chair over their head as you sit in the restaurant with a relative you hardly know who, after not saying anything about it for hours announces ” well people die, it’s up to them” when its brought up, or someone in a pub blurting out “It’s up to them though isn’t it? “, it’s their life to end”
Instead, you recoil inside, consider the chair solution but decide against it. Don’t get me wrong with the first one of those I asked them how old their daughter was ( 17 as it happens and at home a few hundred miles away ) and asked them to imagine the next phone call being someone telling them they had killed themselves… he sat silent, ashen-faced and when another phone in the restaurant beeped, noticeably flinched.. didn’t say much after that.
So then I felt terrible ( very unfair! ) and he looked horrified – not the ideal solution.
Instead, we need to accept people say weird things when they are in the situation, they feel awkward, lost, and unsure and whilst it’s not our job to put them at ease, we can let it slide, chalk it down to them just not knowing, or just being insensitive and hoping that they never have to deal with it themselves.