things that are not helpful

Overall I haven't told people at work what happened, even less details of what occurred. Mostly I don't want to put people into the position of having to respond to the information or having to come up with something to say.

I don't know what it is about people finding out that you have lost a family member that makes them want to immediately tell you about someone they knew who also died. This is not helpful to me.

It's likely that what happens is that he or she will tell me that they had a grandparent pass away and how difficult of an experience that was. But 1) we expect people to die when they are old. If the person managed to reach a state of having grandchildren who are full-grown adults, I figure that they have lived a pretty full life. And 2) is that really supposed to make me feel better? to be reminded that, yes, people die, and it sucks for everyone around them?