My dad died last year, and my half sister (we share a mum) and my mother (had split from my father when I was 14 - I’m 28 now) have repeatedly muscled in. To keep this short but with a bit of back story ...
- my aunt asked what dad would want for the funeral, when I said my ideas she purposefully made sure that wasn’t what we did.
- my sister sent me photos of dad dying despite me begging her to give him some dignity and that I found them very distressing.
- my mother hounded me at the funeral as to why I wasn’t crying, made herself centre of attention and kept referring to my dad’s partner, and woman who held his hand as he finally passed away as his ‘friend’. This lady loved my dad very much.
- my sister overheard my ideas for scattering his ashes so went to collect them before anyone else could (she lives 15 miles away from the crem, I live 250.)
- my sister also took all my dad’s belongings and began to sell them off.
- every family member involved would hound me daily to pay for his funeral (my grandmother/his mum who is well off paid for it and I was demanded to pay her back. This was at Christmas)
- after taking every physical item of my dad’s and his ashes, they caught wind that he had a pension policy to be paid to me and my twin brother ONLY to the tune of a few thousand pounds. They then demanded I share it with them. (My brother and I then split it to pay grandmother back, and kept the rest.)
- I removed them from Facebook as the stress I was under twinned with the grief of losing Dad was too much and I wasn’t coping.
- after removing them (my mother and sister) they made claims to our mutual friends that my husband abuses me (not true?!), that I was mad with grief, that things had gone on that no one knew about and I was only telling my side of things, my sister even made a video of her turning my dad’s ashes and saying how disgusted he would be that I’d turned my back on the family, that I am snobby and vile. My sister has even said I need to be smacked in the face with a brick.
- my mother ‘likes’ these comments and writes very public displays of how much she loves my sister after her horrible comments about me. They’ve become very close throughout this and hidesouly toxic.
......that brings us to now. In a few days time it is my dad’s birthday, and the plan amongst us before the fallings out was to scatter his ashes somewhere that was special to him.
My grandmother has dementia and my mother has gone to see her (they are not close and weren’t when she was with my dad) to give her her version of events and now my sister and mother are playing sickly sweet and nice - have extended the olive branch to scatter dad’s ashes (despite my very Blatant UNINVITE earlier in the year)
So if I refuse to go, despite wanting to say a final goodbye to my DF very very much - I will look like the person they’ve been building me up to be.
But I know there will be snide comments and sly looks and deliberate snubs throughout the experience - it won’t be what I deeply wanted after being pushed out of the funeral.
After a really hard first father’s day without my own father I am feeling emotional and vulnerable again, and could really do without them starting all this up again now...
But they are all awaiting my reply and I don’t know if I am just BU to tell them all to fuck right off and go and lay some flowers elsewhere and have my own private moment.
Or will I regret not being the bigger person and showing up anyway after nearly a year of minimal contact