in not sharing in the sadness of a death??

[dmo]

now then to cut a long story short
my nana died last night, my mum called me this morning blubbering to tell me.
now my nana had alzemers (sorry cant spell) so didnt know who i was so i stopped visiting years ago as she could also get vielent (hit out) and i did not take my sons to visit.
my nana is my mums mum and my mum left myself, and my two brothers (aged 6,5,3) to live with my dads best friend so we had no contact with my nana while we were young until i decided to visit her myself when i got older.
my mum said she would contact me when she found out when the funeral is and kept asking if i was alright,
i course i'm alright its not like i was close or anything. now i'm a childminder and its half term next week so dont really want to take the day off to go to a funeral of somebody i didnt know well, dont even know why my mum is blubbering its not like she was close to her, and my mum took the day off work today, i must be hard but i dont see the point in getting upset and taking days off work when somebody had died who your not very close to, surely the better opp would have been to take a day off work to visit the person when they were alive.

[ThisIsDavinaPleaseDoNotSwear]

don't really know what to say.

Sorry for your loss?

Death changes things surely, even if you haven't been close in the past.

Tell your mum to stop blubbering and pull herself together?

[beansprout]

This isn't your loss from what you are saying. For different reasons I didn;t know my nan, but I did go the funeral to support my mum. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone. Seems like there may be some guilt on your mum's part though. The relationship you have with your mum these days is more important, so I would say to do whatever is right by that.

[Desiderata]

You obviously haven't lost your mother, dmo.

Sorry, but I think you're being a bit insensitive. 'blubbering' is a reasonably common approach to the death of a parent.

It hits you like a sledgehammer in the guts, whether you were close to them or not.

[madamez]

No reason why you should feel sad at the death of a person you didn't know well and didn't much like. However, if your mother feels sad that's up to her. Do what feels right for you, but cut your mum a bit of slack for doing what feels right for her.

[brimfull]

There is nothing wrong with how you feel about your nan's death,it's just the way you feel.

I do think it would be supportive of you to attend the funeral-for you mum's sake.It is her mother after all.

[dmo]

yes but i'm not close to my mum really, she just feels like an aunt
after my mum left my dad we didnt see her for 2 yrs and then we saw her 1 weekend every month till i got fed up
when i met dh 11yrs ago he encouraged me to make a go of it with her so i did and she is a great nana but sadly the mother/daughter thing does not exsist

anyway just got a call from my brother he is a doctor in America and he is coming over for the funeral so i think i will go to work as planned

[Desiderata]

Have a nice day at work.

[binkleandflip]

I wonder if you have resentment towards your mum about the non-existant mother/daughter thing and that has been brought to the fore by your nana's death. Perhaps your mums feelings about her relationship with you have been brought painfully and sharply to the surface as she is no longer a daughter (to her mother) and simply a mother to you. Maybe she's blubbing over losing a relationship that wasnt what it could have been (with her mum). Perhaps this is a good a time as any to re-evaluate your own feelings about your relationship with your mum, what is is and what is will be in the future.

[Elasticwoman]

I think you have every right to resent the fact that your mother left you in the lurch when you were a child, and to have little sympathy for her now. I wouldn't take the day off work to support her if I were you.
(I would for my own mother, but she stayed around in my childhood even when the going got tough.)

[Heathcliffscathy]

I"m not saying that this is what you are doing, but if I were you, I would be very detached about this. And it would be a punishing kind of detachment as it sounds as if life has treated you very unfairly in respect of your mothers departure/who she departed with.

Respect your feelings. But allow the room for them to change into other ones would be my thought.

[dmo]

thanks so much guys for all your opinions

[edam]

I imagine you are probably pissed off with your mother anyway, given your childhood. So unlikely to give her the benefit of the doubt when she's irritating you.

But... people are usually sad when their parents die. Even if the relationship is strained. You may grieve not only for the person who has died but for the fact that you'll never get the chance to make things better, you won't be able to tell them that you love them in spite of everything, or even that you can't have a row with them and tell them exactly where they've been going wrong for the past 30 years. It's the loss of all possibilities. She's probably grieving for the woman her mother was, at some stage - pre-Alzheimers, or when your own mother was a little girl.

Agree it would be better to take time off work to visit people when they are still around, but missed opportunities just make grief even sharper. IME.

[agnesnitt]

I wouldn't go. Funerals are for wallowing. If you don't feel the need to wallow then carry on as usual

Agnes

[OrmIrian]

Don't go. I don't think you would help your mum feeling the way you do.

Respect your feeling sure but try to have some respect for your mothers feelings too. I think it's unkind to talk about her blubbering. My FIL walked out on DH and his sisters when they were tiny and basically behaved like a total sh*t. But when he died DH was totally devastated - death means an end to any opportunity to make things better.

[fairyjay]

There's presumably a lot of guilt floating around at the moment from your Mum. Despite her shortcomings, she probably would appreciate a bit of support.

I don't think you should be hypocritical though, and if pushed by your Mum, should say that obviously you don't feel the grief deeply, because you weren't close to your nana.

[charliecat]

I can see where your coming from, I hate people clambering around for funerals when they couldnt give a toss when they were alive. Riles something in me.
When my dad died I was crying for the dad I hadnt had, rather than for the man in the coffin.
Is your mum expecting you to go to the funeral?

[LieselVentouse]

I wouldnt go IMHO

[snowleopard]

Whether I would go would depend on whether your mum has enough support from elsewhere - does she have good friends, siblings, other children going or anyone to support her? if so I wouldn't. If she's really going to be on her own I would.

[CheesyFeet]

When my Grandad died I was extremely upset, probably did lots of blubbering, was too overcome at the funeral to read out the prayer I had been asked to read with my brothers and cousins.

Not because I would particularly miss my Grandad, I did love him but very rarely saw him and he was just an old man in an armchair.

I was grieving for the relationship I should have had with him if circumstances had been different. I am determined that my dd will be closer to her extended family than I was with mine.

Perhaps your mum is grieving for the relationship she should have had with her mum and with you. Death does make you think of such things. If I were you I wouldn't go to the funeral but I would talk to your mum explaining your reasons and maybe take steps to rebuild your relationship so that your children can have a relationship with her?

[mamhaf]

Has she actually asked to go to the funeral? Or just hinted at it? I'd agree you should be sympathetic to her - saying she was blubbering is a bit harsh - after all, it was her mother and she's bound to be upset.
Imho you should phone her and ask how she's feeling and explain, that as you weren't close to your nana, you would feel hypocritical going to the funeral.
Could you ask your mum if there's anything she would like you to do to support her at what is obviously a sad time for her? (even if it's not sad for you)?
It does sound like it's an opportunity for you and her to build some bridges.

[dmo]

she has 6 sisters and my 2 brothers are going, and her husband
told her today that i cant really go because of work and she said she understands
as i am a childminder i cant really let 8 sets of parents down in the school hols to go to a funeral i am not upset about
happeier now i have told her

[dmo]

she has a fab relationship with my boys her grandchildren and is still having them next weekend as she says she will need lots of cuddles from them

they are going next weekend as it has been planned for weeks dh and i are not going anywhere at all so if she cant cope i will keep them here its just that she likes to have them for the weekend every 6 weeks or so

[LittleMissPositive]

Desiderata - sorry to gatecrash this post but - can i just say I love your name. My mum died recently and I read it at her funeral. She had it on her wall for years.

I blubbered when she died, and took 4 months off work.