That's very true cath. I remember when my mum died, I felt so consumed with guilt, I just couldn't eat. I went for about a week with no food, and at the funeral I was so weak I could hardly stand up. I had never experienced grief like it.
By contrast, when my long-term partner's mum died, she had been cooking a stew that morning, and the pan of stew was still on the stove when we arrived at her house, shortly after her death, and before the undertaker had arrived to take her away. I fell apart, I was distraught, but my (then) partner said it was pointless to waste the stew and he had a bowl of it.
I don't think for one minute he didn't feel as devastated as I did over the loss ..... he just coped with it very differently to me.