Need urgent advice , how to tell dcs that exh has died

[SpinningCat2]

Hi

I've just been informed that exh has died. Very suddenly, dcs not had contact for quite a few years , dcs are 25,23,22,19.

Dc25 is at work untill 10pm , do I tell other 3dcs with out eldest dc,

Worried it will come out on sm (sadly exh family have form for this)

What do I do, dear god Jjust how do I tell them

Hello @SpinningCat2 I'm sorry for your loss.

For information, It is likely that it will be a while before there is any date for a funeral as there is a few days of paperwork involved and if the death was unexpected there may need to be involvement by coroner. In deaths that I am aware of within family /.friends families recently, the funeral has been around 3 - 5 weeks after the person's passing .

Thought I would say that as it may not be that they are keeping this from you, but just that they don't have the information available yet .

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea thank you for that , sadly exh family have form for totally excluding his children in even the most serious of situations , so this "radio silence" even at this early stage when details mat not be known is not a good sign , eg not being given the opportunity to send a card (via a 3rd party if necessary) to his widow, who must be utterly devastated .

Exh himself may well have been unaware of all of the things his family got up to, but tbh now we will never know.

This is very much a "no one size fits all" situation. In some cases, yes, people who've had no contact with the estranged relative for years might well brush it off. In other cases, it will hit people hard. And a lot won't know how they're going to feel until it happens; someone talking about it as a possibility far off in the future rather than expected to happen soon might say they don't expect to care, mean it in the moment they say it, and then be surprised at how hard it hits them when it actually happens (or even later on down the line).

In my case while I wasn't quite as estranged from my father as some of the posts on here, it probably hit me harder losing my grandad, who effectively took over as my father figure. The worst moment for me was probably the funeral, which fell at the beginning of Lockdown 1 meaning very few people could attend, and part of me felt like I was taking the place of someone who had more of a relationship with him, while I couldn't relate to the stories of comedy moments involving jet skis on holiday because I just hadn't had those experiences (with Grandad, I have a long list).

SIL probably told you he had died so that she could mess with your head as she is now.

There must be a way to find out as as I said previously, someone turned up to the family funeral we had last year and we hadn't told her when and where it was.

@BirthdayRainbow

I was thinking , why bother telling us he died but then not let us say goodbye??
But she loves being in control, she's always right etc etc you know the sort

I'm so sorry @SpinningCat2 . Can you try and find a way to get the information you need without asking her or anyone connected to her again?

I'm sorry to hear this. I know it's not ideal, but if you cannot get details of the funeral, maybe you and your children can say goodbye in your own way? For example by maybe going to a spot that was special to you / has some nice memories and leaving flowers, or maybe lighting candles and sharing stories, or doing an activity that reminds you of him, or planting a tree in his memory. I think it's important to be able to say goodbye so if his family continue to block information, then something on your own might help. But I'm sorry the situation is being made more difficult for you.

If the kids can't get to the funeral is there a register somewhere that will show where his grave / memorial is ?

Not sure if there are different things for Scotland Vs England

Thanks

Try funeralguide.co.uk