Sister's housemate wants to bring her father's body to stay at their home for 5 days before funeral. Advice?

[MumfordandDaughter]

Hello, sorry if this is in the wrong area.

My sister's just phoned me in bits. She works as a teacher further up North from me on one of the small islands. She shares a house with a fellow teacher/colleague.

The housemate is an only child. Her elderly father died last night and the mother has refused to have his body at their home because she wouldn't be able to cope. She also doesn't want the body to remain at the funeral parlour or go to chapel. So the mother has asked her daughter - my sister's housemate - to have him at her house instead, to which the housemate agreed.

My sister is really uncomfortable with this. Especially as it's going to be an open coffin until the day of the funeral (middle of next week). The housemate plans to hold 2-3 rosaries and the wake at their house, too.

My sister - who is really quiet and usually a 'yes' person - has told her housemate she's not happy with this arrangement, and it will make her really uncomfortable.

The housemate really didn't take this well and it ended with the mother phoning my sister and calling her selfish.

My sister doesn't know what to do. It's a really small town she lives in, with just one very expensive hotel. My parents have refused to loan her the money to stay at the hotel for the week as they feel the housemate should fork up at least half.

My sister also doesn't want to have to move, because it's so far from school/work, and there's no guarantee there'll be any rooms (it's only a 7-room place).

She doesn't know where she stands. It's not a religious difference, as they're both the same religion. it's just the thought of her father's open coffin being in their living room for all that time, and all the family visiting through the week.

My sister and housemate aren't particularly friends, but they've always been civil up until now.

Does anyone have any advice i could pass on?

(I told her to come on here herself but she refused to because she doesn't have children )

OP I agree you or you Mother or Father should call anyone eho can help and get this stopped. Yoir sister is being pathetic so someone needs to step in and do it for her. They are taking complete advantage of her weakness.

Crikeyblimey Fri 03-May-13 19:50:08 Woah Crikey, EVERYONE is of course entitled to there own individual view - and, it must be acknowledged, yours is vereeee, erm, 'individual' - and to offer OP advice/reply to her plea for help in this (frankly surreal) situation.. However, I have to be honest here and say the entirity of your post has left me (suspect poss NOT 'just' me if honest?) reeling with - as bluntly, it's def a tad, err, 'loo-lah'? And doesn't seem to have REMOTELY grasped the issues here either...

And before I have to don Kevlar vest here and duck any napalm, I genuinely DO have the UTMOST sympathy for the bereaved DM; and the same but with huge extra empathy bells on for the DD having only just watched my Mum die, so I do know that excoriating pain and shock - I really really do, and it IS just horrific.

But - and it's quite a big (fecking the size of Mount Everest type TBH) BUT - grief/shock/pain ALL included, the whole proposal (which wasn't EVEN a 'proposal' but a "Here's what me and my Mum are doing with our dead dad for the next 5 days" ) is frickin NUTS. And beyond out of order - genuinely, I truly cannot think of any other kind of impostion on others that even touches the SIDES of this one. I don't think OP's sis fancied a uninvited lodger in her home for the bulk of a week, let alone a dead one?

And the entourage and then all - ALLLLLL, as is sooooo much that goes with it? The mourners; the rosaries; the awkwardness of trying to make her dinner with perfect (alive) strangers mourning around her and another perfect (but dead) stranger parked in front of Corrie there too?

Crikey: "I can hardly believe what I'm reading...." Nods Crikey, truly am nodding. Lots. As I can hardly believe what I'm reading either in your post don't recall being this baffled in a verreeee long time as it is just, well, a tad 'out there'?

'I agree I'd probably not want to be there if it wasn't a relative but I'd also respect the need to take over one room in the house for 5 days' - Eh??? As it is soooo NOT 'taking over one room' is it? By it's very nature, it's taking over the whole HOUSE and, again by it's very nauture, having a swift make-over into a 24/7 funeral parlour to boot?

'This man is dead - he won't smell (crass fucking comment).'

Technically, you are of course right. HE won't smell anything - as he is, as you correctly point out, dead.

Sadly though, you are utterly wrong in telling others that their referencing the 'odour' of natural decay is i) not true; ii) that their mentioning that l'il fact is in any way a 'crass fucking comment'.

It's not. It's a fact. 5 days in May (with the hottest day of the year forecast for Monday....) will result in vast decay; enormous odour; and - blunt but true - seeping fluids. In OP's sister's - who doesn't even KNOW this family - sitting room????

[I genuinely didn't think this thread could GET any more surreal or jaw-dropping, but that THUD you just heard was mine hitting the floor as read your post.]

Please intervene on your DS's behalf OP and stop this fiasco. She may be annoyingly feeble but she really needs someone to speak up for her.

Just a thought, does the landlord actually know why your DS want to contact him/her so urgently. Speaking as a LL there's no way I'd allow this in my house. I'd be putting barricades on the windows and doors. It's a disgusting idea, it's your DS's home fgs.

I agree with Saggy, I think the widow doesn't want the smell in her own home. 5 days is a very long time to have a dead body lying around even if it has been embalmed. There will be an odour and it will linger.

Sorry, was so 'EH???' by that one post that my manners vis thanks took second seat.

Cozie - Thank you for the - much appreciated, gratefully accepted, and now drunk (as in, the wine has been drunk, NOT I am although frankly it is looking like a pretty tempting proposition drunk);

VoiceOf - Thank you for not ripping the p*ss out of me

And BewitchedBotheredandBewildered Aside from TOTALLY agreeing with your succinct but deft description of this frankly unreal situation - 'This is utter madness!' - thank you for your proclamations of a l'il love (as Lord knows need all the love I can get right now ) but also thinking I'll probably need a good wingman shortly as suspect Crikey may be utterly crikified by my last post, no matter how honest and factual it was!

Glad make you smile, that is genuinely a really lovely thing for you to write (& it really has been a truly brutal week, so appreciate the fact you bothered enough to write it) - have also had THE nicest ever PM this evening from another MN'er who was a bit stuck a few weeks back and I was able to help out, so between both of you, my even laughing at myself re the VoiceOf mortification, you have made me smile for first time all week (think the reality that my Mum really has 'gone', IYKWIM?, has only hit me properly this week so it has been a pretty low few days).

Will stop StoicWritesForEngland now and just repeat, thank you xxx

Definitely think you need to ring up the priest and the funeral home on behalf of your sis OP - I know it's a pain but they are the people that are best placed to stop all this before the body arrives - or get it moved if it has.

Or maybe suggest that it stays in the school hall or chapel if they all work at a school - that would go down like a ton of bricks i'm sure but if they don't think it's appropriate to be at the school then why on earth is it appropriate to be anywhere other than the man's home or the funeral parlour?

It's a bank holiday weekend - it's really not a weekend you want to be kipping down on your head of department's sofa, it's a weekend you want to enjoy and chill out - not freeze because you need to keep the house cold because of the corpse in the living room...

Maybe somebody ought to organise a zombie flash mob to come and sort things out

This thread is so utterly surreal anyway zipzap, that a zombie flash mob would not be out of place.
And I think the bereaved mother and daughter are behaving in bad taste anyway.
As for the utterly pathetic sister, I have no words.

I know its a cultural/belief thing, but I cannot begin to imagine staring at the mortal remains of a loved one for FIVE days!

Madness. Complete utter madness. I know all about the single mindedness of bereavement, that you have no proportion because you are consumed by a terrible loss. But this is quite insane. Your poor sister, OP. It is hard to stand up for yourself in a situation like this because you want to help and respect the grief and loss.

I don't know what to suggest. This is one of those threads that is going to haunt me and makes my life seem quite sane and dull.

Poor man getting dragged around to random houses its like flipping weekend at Bernies

That just made me actually LOL 50!!

"Weekend at Bernies"

Both my sister and my mum lay at the funeral parlour after their deaths and I went to say goodbye there.
It's a peaceful respectful place with equally respectful staff.
I have no idea why this can't be the case for the people in question.
The poor bloke will never be at rest while being passed from pillar to post.
I hope you let your sister read this thread Op, maybe the vipers could knock some sense into her.

I deal with dead bodies a lot in my job & I can honestly tell you that even after being embalmed the smell of a dead body will linger for such a long time. It's such a distinct smell, it will linger in your sisters house ( and in her nostrils) long after the 5 days. Surely no LL in his right mind would want that in their house!

It is very unlikely that there is a funeral parlour on a remote island so I doubt this is an option. There can't be a funeral until Tue because of the bank holiday weekend. The flatmate's mother is faced with having her dead husband in her house until the day of the funeral and probably is struggling with this. I would urge you OP, as others have done, to get your sister to speak to the priest and see if the funeral can be brought forward. These are exceptional circumstances and I'm sure if the priest knew what was going on he would be accommodating. The mother might be ok if the wake was only a day or two in the house. Wakes are not unusual in many parts of Ireland and Britain but 5 days is very unusual and seriously undesirable because of the inevitable decay. Pleade everyone stop with the name calling of both the bereaved mother and the OP's sister. This is a small remote community not the leafy suburbs. I hope you find a reasonable solution and that the poor man rests in peace.

I am absolutely sure the priest would want to know that this situation was going down. No clergy would want to be inadvertently engaging in something that's causing so much distress to your sister.

Your sister either needs to toughen up (and I do understand the whole social anxiety thing) or get better at choosing housemates).

The flatmate's mother is faced with having her dead husband in her house until the day of the funeral and probably is struggling with this. But not struggling enough to have him in her daughters house for the full 5 days, and to move in there with him!

I'm not saying this is reasonable, just trying to understand her thinking.

This is why all this guff about 'respecting' people's demented primitive bullshit 'cultural traditions' is such a bad thing. It's a license to bully. It is totally unreasonable to expect the OP's sister to smile sweetly and accept being driven out of her own home for five days due to someone else wanting to perform some freaky, invasive rituals in it. I rather expect that the corpse's family are the sort of people who have been entitled, self-obsessed bullies all their lives, and are now using 'tradition' and 'Waa we're bereaved' as a justification for walking all over someone they have identified as vulnerable and passive.

Wow! Don't be visiting Ireland then SGB! It's not freaky or weird in itself to want to say goodbye in your own way to a loved one.

It is too much to ask a housemate you aren't that close to though.

And I don't get the 'no funeral parlour' bit - he is in one now!

Stoic, sorry for the loss of your Mom. And thanks for posting as it sounds like your bereavement is recent and this topic must trigger more grief. (And I'm in complete agreement with your posts, and enjoyed a giggle too...but always envisioned the "x" as the froo-froo air kisses, just trying to help...crawling back under my rock.)

Mumford, good luck. Are you a resident local to these events? I know this doesn't help a bit, but this story will have a lot of legs through generations of your family, I imagine. And everyone one reading this thread will undoubtedly amend any future rental agreements to cover this scenario.

Your dear sister must expect gift certificates to assertiveness training courses for the next several dozen gift giving occasions. However, I do appreciate the sensitive circumstances that someone's Dad has died, and your dsis has responded with kindness. I do hope she will be able to live with someone else at the end of her lease.

Actually, the wierd corpse-fetishism is not the main problem even though there are health and safety issues with having it there for five days in the summer. It's the selfishness and bullying behaviour of the bereaved flatmate and her mother that's the really unacceaptable thing. It would be just as unreasonable if the flatmate wanted to host a weekend-long poker tournament or invite her entire hockey team to sleep over for several days whether the OP's sister liked it or not. It's basically about a woman being told she has to either leave her own home for several days, or put up with strangers making a noise and doing stuff all over the place, not being able to get into the sitting room because they have left bulky objects all over it, having to be quiet when they want quiet yet not complain if they want to yowl and yodel all night long. The OP's sister and her feelings matter just as much as the housemate, therefore the housemate is a selfish, entitled, bully.

Again SGB we agree on the unacceptable behaviour but disagree on the bringing a body home (to their own home not someone else's)

It's not weird or a fetish. It is a way to come to terms with a death and say goodbye. You may not agree with it and it's perfectly acceptable not to want it in your home if that's the case but that doesn't make it a 'fetish'

i don't think anyone would care where the body was if everyone who LIVED and paid to live (!!!) in the property was ok with it.

How anyone, however insane with grief and whatever the mitigating factors, could think that going to their daughter's rented property when the housemate has said no and is miserable, is ok....

something is wrong beyond grief

I hate the idea of having an open coffin.

My grandma's coffin was open. She looked nothing like herself at all. My mum was mortified, as my aunt wanted an open coffin. My mum was cross as she already said good bye when she passed away in the hospital.

We're Catholic, but we don't like this open coffin thing. I for one do not want to see adead relative/friend.

Your sister needs to say no, and inform ll ASAP as I'm sure theyll have something to say about it.

Weekend at Bernie's