DSD going to Wimbledon and a concert instead of my mums funeral

[GillieLo]

My mum passed recently, this wasn’t a shock as she had been ill for a while but none the less we are devastated.

I have 2 bio children and DSD who has been in my life for 8 years, she was friendly with my mum and my mum has left her just as much as she has her other grandchildren.

DSD said she couldn’t come to the funeral as work was busy and she couldn’t get time off, she’s 24.

Tonight my DD has shown me her instagram stories. Up at 4am queuing for Wimbledon, seems to have spent the day there and is now at Hyde park seeing Gracie Abrams and Noah Kahan.

AIBU to be unbelievably pissed off this is why she didn’t come to my mums funeral when my mum has left her 15k?

I was understanding when it was work but a concert and Wimbledon?!!

DHs response is “she’s young she probably had these plans for a while and we all grieve differently”.

She could do some or all of those things but she hasn't. She has lied about why she couldn't attend the funeral.

As for OP's DH's comment that peope grieve differently, she certainly isn't showing any signs of grief.

Her behaviour has upset OP who is grieving her mother. She could have at least kept all this stuff off social media to enable her to continue with the lie that she was at work. Ignorance would have been bliss for OP.

What a load of old rubbish. There is no way she forgot about the funeral. She is just trying to save face. She has behaved appallingly here

Yes you’re right. I expect she will give up the 15k inheritance coming to her since she’s only known her 8 years and was just a step granddaughter

Exactly. Not sure why this wasn't in the OP.

But happy to take the money?

As for OP's DH's comment that peope grieve differently, she certainly isn't showing any signs of grief.

Must she? People are weird about funerals and death. Grief is not mandatory.

Funeral or not, this is more about OP not being happy about DSD getting £15k inheritance, probably thought it should go to DD

It’s mine too

She shouldn't have lied, although maybe she did to try not to cause an issue, but funerals aren't compulsory. Most the time they're bloody horrible and let's be real, although apologies to be blunt, The person is dead, they don't know who is there. I couldn't give two hoots who comes to mine.

But that's how you feel, not how OP feels. Non-attendance at the funeral hasn't hurt OP's mum because she is dead, but it has upset OP when she is grieving. She is hurt that her step-daughter has lied and obviously didn't really care about the woman who treated her like another grandaughter, even leaving her an equal amount in her will.

OP has said DSD didn't tell them about her plans, but they wouldn't have taken them into account anyway as they'd have prioritised other family commitments such as holidays and graduations.

This is the difficulty really, and I think for those of us with big families, it becomes more of a problem now we have such long waits for funerals in England. You can either do the first available date and it's prioritised over everything else, which is what generally used to happen when it was done in a week, or you try and pick the date that's best for the collective. OP has said they did the latter. Obviously that then means there are potential issues because it may involve value judgements about which people and which events are more important.

That's just bizarre. People go to funerals to support someone who has suffered a loss. It's the normal human response to our shared mortality.

But if the person isn’t important enough to be considered in the deciding of a date, then why should their attendance be judged so harshly

That’s not what OP said 🙄

Have you missed that DSD could have made the funeral service and gone to the concert?

Because going to Wimbledon isn't the same as going to a graduation.

And it certainly isn't the same as paying your last respects and supporting the family.

The DSD said she was working. But she lied, she wasn’t working. She was queueing at 4am for Wimbledon tickets,

What do you think this means then? You presumably read it as it includes the section about the concert being in the evening.

We are dealing with a large extended family, 10 grandkids, 4 children, sisters/brothers. We tried to work around everyone the best we could but some people had holidays booked for next week, 2 of my nieces at Scottish unis had graduation this week etc.
I don’t think we would have been able to take a concert (which she could have made if she came to the service and skipped Wimbledon anyway) into account.
She didn’t tell us about the concert at all though.

I suppose I am coming at this from an Irish perspective where by and large there is no consultation about dates, and if there were, no-one would think tickets for a concert or a match would be reason to miss a funeral.

So she’s known someone for only eight years and the death was not unexpected. In the same circs I’m not sure I’d go to a funeral on a day when I had already invested a lot of money on tickets to literally unrepeatable events. Sorry OP I think you are being harsh

I read it as a grieving family juggling multiple family member commitments including things that can’t be moved or cancelled like graduations.

What do you think it means?

Yeah maybe it’s different in different places, but if she did consult some people in the picking of the date and DSD wasn’t included then it’s not fair to expect her to drop everything to be there

You're right. My mum died when I was 25 and I had just had my first baby. My dad, who didn't appear to give a shit, organised a direct cremation without consulting his children. It wasn't for financial reasons which I would have understood. There was no closure and I've no idea where her ashes went. It all felt cold and unfeeling and downright weird (I felt really embarrassed when people asked how the funeral went) and over 40 years later, it still upsets me.

I've family in Ireland. Agree it's really different there, but they don't have the funeral backlog we do. None of mine can get their heads round having to wait weeks for a slot. Having also had a family funeral in England quite recently where we had similar issues to the OP, this comes from the fact that we're not able to do them immediately now.

She didn’t have the Wimbledon tickets, she queued for them the day of the funeral.

I’m booking a direct cremation.

What actual support would the step daughter be for the op? deep down rather than just being an another number of mourners.

It’s not that the dsd didn’t support op because that’s her dh’s job role.

I also find weird and frankly funny how loads of people that haven’t bothered to speak to the dead for years suddenly come crawling out the wood work. Not op’s story but in general in funerals. Couldn’t be arsed when they were alive but now their dead need to put on a show.