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.
I have to agree with LM not sure about the body parts though.People pay huge amounts for flowers if someone is cremated they end up being sent to old people homes and such like or just left I think the single Rose with a nice ribbon is a great idea or a card the saying charity begins at home comes to mind as you say in normal circumstances you would contribute but they shouldnt expect it of you as things are.Cruton xxx
Hils, if you're expected to spend £50 on flowers - which after all is only for form's sake - then you might as well go to the funeral for form's sake. But as you've no intention of going - and why should you? - then a modest gesture is all that's called for. As Odin says, a card with a few appropriate words is quite enough, and will be remembered and appreciated far longer than flowers.
