I could use a hug and some sympathetic outrage.

[DebJ]

15. I'm not upset about the sister not attending the funeral.

Initially I was shocked, because personally there is nothing except being unconscious that would have kept me from my own mother's funeral. But I got over that..... this sister has almost never visited my parents in 40 years.... I'd say maybe 3 times. The rest of the time they saw her, in their 60s and 70s, they had to drive 4 hours to get to her house, and they did that many times.. it was either that, or they wouldn't see her. She often didn't call or return Mom's calls for months at a time. Two of my 3 sisters are like that and if they didn't look just like my parents I'd think they didn't come from the same gene pool. One time about 6 years ago I went with my parents on a 12 hour train ride from WV to Chicago (overnighter and you cannot sleep at all), then drove in a car all the way across the state to western Illinois to see the sister that didn't come to the funeral. We checked into a hotel upon arriving there, and called her. This visit had been planned months in advance. When we called her, she said they could squeeze out about 2 hours for a visit that afternoon. Mom says okay we are staying the night we will come back tomorrow. She says, no, I don't have time for any more of a visit. So the next day we drove on to Wisconsin to spend the rest of a 10 day trip with the other sister. That was the only visit in 15 years.


I was upset because they wished to deny my father a chance to meet with friends and family and feel their love and support with any type of a memorial service...it was to be just 15 minutes of prayer, and put her in the mausoleum, and that was it. And I was upset because I had to fight for this for a full day, and was being treated pretty nasty for daring to bring it up, as if this was an outrageous, unheard of thing, and treated even worse for continuing to push and push and push.

My point exactly was that this was for my FATHER, for the living, not for my Mom nor my sisters.


And I was upset about the Facebook posting.... I do NOT want to find out about my father's passing in the near future via a Facebook post.

I will continue to feel that it was outrageous for my sisters to attempt to remove a memorial service from my father's grieving process, to want to keep him isolated and alone, which is the goal of the sister he lives with.... she has flat out said that. When they moved to her home 20 months ago or so, they were incredibly isolated. She wouldn't spend any time with them, wouldn't even answer direct questions when their paths crossed in the house, stayed as far away from them as she could for 10 months until her husband interceded. She wouldn't help them get adjusted to their new town, introduce them around, try to get them involved in local activities to replace what they had done in their former home. I listed on the phone, long-distance, for all this time as my parents minds rapidly fell apart from disuse and isolation, and as my mom's heart cracked as she faced the daily rejection of a daughter who wouldn't even answer a direct question. She moved in with this sister because she trusted her, and wanted to make up for lost years not shared together. Very sad.
My sister can't hurt her anymore now.