to expect someone to travel over 4 hours to a funeral

[MurkyMo]

Would you travel 4.5 hours to a funeral of a friends parent in terrible weather and on B roads with you just getting over a bad dose of flu as well?

I would attend the funeral only if the deceased had been someone I had a personal relationship with, more than them just being the parent of a friend.

In those circumstances no, I wouldn't. Not in bad weather and not being well. Im sure your friend would understand

Op are you in Ireland?
There appears to be a different culture towards funerals in Ireland to England with Scotland somewhere in between.

Unless you feel you should go due to close ties, I’d gracefully decline an invite to a funeral that involved that much travelling. But I’m old school and take the approach that funerals are for paying final respects to the deceased. At my Dad’s funeral my DSis invited loads of her friends ‘as they would want to support her’. I found it weird that there were loads of people there that didn’t actually know our DF.

@MurkyMo what classes as terrible weather for this person? How unwell?

It would have been useful to have had the details you have put in your 2nd post to begin with because then I'm pretty sure the answer would have been unequivocally no, don't go. Why would you even consider it, in the circumstances?

I won't go to funerals unless it's an immediate family member, I can't handle them emotionally. Send your condolences.

We had 2 very close relatives die this Christmas. One is local, with most of their family 3.5 hours away. One is 4 hours away, with most of their family local to them.

We will go to the local-to-us funeral, and do not expect family to travel here in winter.
We will not go to the distant one.

We will be judged.

We don't care.

Absolutely not

I would and have, for a close friend.

No. Not for parent of a friend I didn’t see much. I would need to know the parent very well to travel that far.

I wouldn’t.

But then I wouldn’t expect or want any of my friends to travel that distance for one of my relatives funerals.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to make that journey in the sort of weather which has warnings or (not even and) is not very well.

Nope.

The friend is someone you knew well in your 20s but you've only seen them once in 20 years and now just occasionally message each other. Presumably you haven't seen their parents in 20 years either? The answer is no. This person isn't a close friend, and hasn't been for 20 years. I'd send a sympathy card, and maybe flowers to the friend. Is your friend expecting you to come to the funeral? In which case, I'd say that you are still recovering from the flu, and the journey is too much for you at the moment. That's not unreasonable, and I certainly wouldn't expect someone I haven't seen in 20 years to come to my family members funeral.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to go to someone’s funeral. If you go you go , if you don’t you don’t.

i would only travel that distance for a close family member or a best friends funeral.

No. I would send a card and some flowers and explain why I wasn't there.

Only if you actually knew the parent eg you were round their house all the time when you were young, ate meals with the family sometimes etc.

Yes, and I have done that very thing myself more than once. Some things are bigger than ourselves.

Yes I would, and I have. (Although without the ‘recovering from flu’ bit).

Sounds like you’re making excuses not to go! It’s fine to not want to go in your circumstances, but ask yourself how you’ll feel later? If you’re really not bothered, then that’s fine. Don’t send flowers - they’ll be inundated with them - but write a letter expressing your condolences.

Driving when unwell in bad weather sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
So no.

4.5 hours is a horrendous journey on its own.

Really?

Can you attend online? Wouldn't travel in those circumstances.

If you don't want to go don't go BUT at my Mum's wake recently I was genuinely surprised how many people came to pay their respects to her and some of them were my childhood friends who I hadn't seen for nearly 40 years (I had moved away and they were very much on the periphery of my life), they all had fond memories of my Mum who had stayed in the area. They were coming for her, not me (and hopefully not the buffet). It made me re-evaluate how I view going to a funeral going forward and I think I would make the effort.

I should have said including B roads. Around an hour on B roads.