My mum has died – and there is one kind of response I can’t stand | Polly Hudson

The platitudes, euphemisms and cliches are excruciating.

But the people who say nothing at all are the worst Luckily, I already knew having a comic thought at a tragic moment is a natural stress response , or I might have worried.

My mum has died, making me an orphan – and what first popped into my head was how annoyed Larry David would be.

In Curb Your Enthusiasm , when Marty Funkhouser’s mother’s wheelchair was run over by a car, he proclaimed himself an orphan.

David informed him he was too old to be an orphan.

Funkhouser insisted that if your parents are dead, you’re an orphan .

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