My pratty brother Jeremy - the one who isn't speaking to me, for reasons which I have never quite figured out, largely because who the hell cares? - has just sent my nice brother Tim the following email, which Tim has forwarded on to me and Penny:
The funeral is at [somewhere in Leatherhead] on Tuesday 27th March at 11.00 a.m.
James and Doreen’s phone number is [number] if you’d like to let them know you’re coming.
I expect you’ll want to let our sisters know the news, if you think they’ll be interested.
Good lord. Could the guy be any more of a dick?
You may note that there is a crucial item of information missing from that message. I have no idea who's dead. I assume it's either James's father or his mother. Not, one hopes, both, which would be, as per Oscar Wilde, careless.
At the risk of confirming Jeremy's unfavourable opinion, I'm afraid I can't say that I'm particularly bothered about this, other than in the most remote oh-that's-sad-but-he-was-in-his-80s-so ... sort of way. I saw my uncles and cousins maybe a couple of times a year when I was growing up, if that much, then at my sister's wedding in the early 1970s, and the surviving cousins (one of them had died In The Gutter in the interim, a fact of which I am obscurely proud) turned up at my dad's funeral in 2003. That's it. Bosom family they are not, in fact I have to stop and think which of the four cousins belongs to which of the two uncles, and which ones have died. I'll send them a sympathy card, of course, if anyone lets me know who I'm sympathising about and where to send it to, but I don't see us hacking over to Leatherhead to say goodbye to somebody I barely knew.
Maybe I'm hard-hearted and unnatural. Eh, well, too late to change now.
FormerMember
Hils,
You have my sympathy and support - I have a brother too... suddenly after 15 or more years incommunicado (not that I ever cared) he came out of the woodwork, "found" my address & phone no. in his loft & suddenly wants to play fond siblings. Maybe he thinks I'll leave him some money in my Will. Tough.Our parents & I were always bailing him out with loans .. 'nuff said. And his wife's unbearable.
Sorry you've got such a dickhead for a brother, but look at it this way - at least you all get to laugh! I don't "do" funerals either unless I knew & liked the departed. Doing things for form's sake? No, life's too short.
Some people really are gobshites (oh I do love that word and I think it was you who reminded me of it recently tee hee). I know though that you are a wise woman and that you will rise above it. You are the bigger, better person by far.
As it turns out, my uncle might have been quite an interesting person to know. He was a Wellington tail gunner, apparently, one of those who was lucky enough to survive - they had an extremely high mortality rate, which is the correct form of expressing it, not, as Tim put it, 'That was the bit they usually had to hose out'.
I'm now a bit Fraught on the whole matter of tributes. Tim's suggesting that he and Penny and I make a £100 donation to the chosen charity; in the meantime, Penny's already ordered flowers from her and me. That'll come to about £50 from me, which - not to be a tightwad - seems a bit steep for someone I didn't know. Even so, if things were normal I'd just shrug and put my hand in my pocket for the sake of peace and quiet. But ... there's this thing where I'm only getting £60something a week, courtesy of the charity of the Guvmint ...
You see my quandary!
I suppose it's good that Life keeps throwing these little problems in my face, it takes my mind off my imminent loss of most of my body parts!
my wise aunt (and as my only surviving relative, she's got to be pretty wise!!) says the living are important, not the dead. Don't you dare spend money you don't have on flowers that no one will really care about anyway. You are a big girl now and your brother doesn't need to tell you to how much to spend etc.
Does anyone know how much you put in anyway??? Is there a log? I would say that is rather bad form if they do and should be boycotted on principal. Tell them you donated already, only a small amount cos of the cancer and no money (play the cancer card- that's what they are for!!) Actually, don't send anything excpet a card. People read cards. They don't remember flowers and who gave what. You could go for the poingnant statement single red rose haha (cheap)
OR
You could wait and send on of your removed body parts, but I suspect that may be seen as bad taste in some quarters... i.e. the normal ones,
