Rudeness at a Funeral

Every once in a while you meet someone who has so little regard for you or your feelings that you can simply turn your back on them and walk away without getting angry or upset because you know that they are not worth the energy those feelings would create. Recently I was with some people like that and I just have to get it off my chest.

Last week my siblings and I went to Williamsburg to lay to rest my mother's youngest brother. He was a great guy who loved his family and he had lived a long and (except for the last six months or so) a wonderful life.

My Uncle took accelerated courses in high school so he would be able to serve in the Navy during WWII. The war ended while he was in boot camp so he spent four years stateside as a medical corpsman. When his enlistment was over he found a job in sales and loved it and was a salesman for his entire professional life.

My Uncle married and had 3 children; a son and two daughters. He considered being a father his best and greatest accomplishment. His first marriage failed for a number of reasons and he remarried and was very happy. His wife had two daughters that he adopted when they were adults.

This was a man who worked longer than necessary to provide for him and his wife an idyllic retirement. They lived in a lovely and exclusive community in Williamsburg and by anyone's definition lived the "good life".

In the last six months his health failed and the health of his wife is also not what it should be. (Let me interject here that my Uncle and his wife were both 83 years old.) Her daughters seemingly began making all the big decisions regarding his health care and finances. My uncle, when he was lucid, was not very happy with how things were going but because of his failing health was unable to do anything to make the situation better. My cousins, his son and 2 daughters, did everything they were able to do to make things better for their father but they live 350 miles and 6 hours away and were stymied at every turn.

Now when "steps" are involved it has always been my practice to take things with a 'grain of salt' figuring that not everything is as black and white as they seem. These women and their blatant rudeness have certainly opened my eyes where they are concerned.

When I went into the wake the other night and I was ignored I gave 'S' the benefit of the doubt when I said hello and she ignored me. I explained who I was and she told me that she knew who I was and then continued to ignore me as did her younger sister. This was no great loss to me. They are not a part of my life and I don't need them to validate my existence.

The thing that has my blood boiling was that they ignored my other Uncle. The 85 year old who was burying his little brother. These two women ignored him and did not say one word of condolence to the man even though they rode to and from the cemetery in the same car. They whispered in the back seat of the limo and ignored his presence when they could. When my Uncle wanted to give a eulogy at the graveside they did that eye roll thing that we all know too well. My Uncle may not have seen that but one of my siblings did. My Uncle was able to make his farewell remarks despite them.

My mother and her brothers were orphaned at very young ages. They had only themselves. After their mother passed away they were sent off to boarding school. At the time my mother was 13 and her brothers were 7 and 5. They lost their father 7 years later. Because of the gap in their ages my mother was not able to spend as much time as she would have liked with her brothers. They were on their own for their years in school with only each other to count on.

When my Dad died 35 years ago my uncles both stepped up and played greater roles in the lives of me and my siblings. When my Mom passed away 19 years ago they were both devastated by her loss. To loose my Uncle was difficult for me but what it must have meant to his surviving brother is almost incomprehensible.

My cousins have lost their Father and I know how that feels but loosing a parent is something that you expect in the course of life. What you don't expect is the rudeness of the people who say they are sharing that grief with you,

Someday in the not too distant future these two women will be mourning their mother. I hope when that happens the people around them have more concern for their feelings than they have shown to others this past week.