Dear Grief Guide, I Don't Want To Go To The Funeral

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

My grandfather passed during COVID,

And my family is getting ready to hold an in-person memorial for him in February,

On the second anniversary of his death.

When he died,

It felt too risky to get everyone together in person,

Especially my grandmother and the older aunts and uncles.

Around the one-year anniversary of his death,

My sister had a baby with massive medical complications,

And we chose to collectively support her instead of navigating the logistics of intercontinental travel.

This year is the year,

Though,

And my mom and her siblings have banded together to orchestrate a full-on celebration of life weekend.

Here's the thing,

Though.

I don't want to go to the funeral.

For a variety of reasons,

Including emotional and physical abuse,

As well as a tendency towards alcoholism and denial of bad behavior,

I'm estranged from most of my family,

Including my grandfather,

Who I lived with for eight unpleasant years of my childhood.

I've been getting constant messages from people,

Everyone from distant cousins to my grandfather's old co-workers,

Asking me if I'm going to the celebration of life.

I know that it would not serve me to go in any way,

So I say,

I'm not sure.

Then I'm met with messages like,

Oh,

It would be good for you to go,

Or your grandfather would want you to be there.

I feel guilty for dodging their encouragement,

But I don't feel like I should have to constantly explain to people why I'm not going.

My question is,

What's the best way to respond to these messages?

I know my grandfather's close friends and family mean well,

But the dynamic between us has so many layers.

If I went,

I know I'd only be there because other people pressured me to go,

And I don't think I can stand sitting in a room where people are,

By and large,

Singing his praises and grieving the fact that he is no longer with us.

I have a great grief support group and friends who have told me it's okay not to attend,

But these constant messages from people who I haven't spoken to in many years are getting to be too much.

Signed,

Odd Man Out.

Hi there,

Odd Man Out,

And thank you so much for this letter,

Because I think in the grief space,

There is a lot of conversation about grieving loved ones.

There is less conversation about grieving less than loved ones,

People who have hurt us,

People who have done us wrong,

People who have wounded us in ways that we do our best to repair for the rest of our lives.

I think the first thing I'm picking up on in your letter is that you're certain.

You are certain that you do not want to go to the celebration of life for you.

It is not a celebration of his life.

It would be an instance where you show up as a part of a family and put on a face of wholeness or togetherness or mourning that does not feel true or authentic to you.

So I am not going to be a person that tells you you should go and that your grandfather would want you there or that he would be proud or that it would be good for you.

Because it sounds very much like going to the celebration of life of someone who has wounded you deeply in many ways.

Some that you've shared here,

Some that I imagine you have not.

It would not be healing for your heart,

It would not be restorative,

It would not be a place where your grief,

Your specific flavor of grief regarding your specific relationship to your grandfather would be welcome.

There is not a lot,

This is sad to say,

And there's grief in this statement in and of itself,

But there's not a lot of room for complexity in memorials and celebrations of life and funerals.

There is a large societal assumption that if you are attending a funeral,

You deeply love and miss the person who is no longer here.

And that saddens my heart because I think for so many grieving people,

Even for people who would refer to somebody that they lost as a loved one,

There is still complication in every relationship.

And I'm not sure this is a larger topic than I can get into today.

But I would love to see a world where there is space for complex relationships at memorials and funerals.

Whether we have specific rituals for that,

Whether we talk about the full picture of a deceased person,

As opposed to honoring them as a saint who lived a perfect life,

Because nobody lives a perfect life,

Including me.

I hope people talk about me honestly when I die.

Yes,

This is,

Yeah,

This is a whole other tangent.

But I get the sense from how you speak about what's being planned and who is pressuring you to go and why they're pressuring you to go,

That this is not a space where your grief would be welcome.

And I'm gonna,

I'm gonna push on you a little bit,

Odd man out,

Because the way that you are responding to these messages,

I think,

Invites people to try to convince you to go to these services.

So if your grandfather's old co-worker is texting you and saying,

Hey,

Are you going to be there at the celebration of life?

Looking forward to seeing you and you say,

I'm not sure what that comes across as or what that can sound like to people who've sent you that message is,

Oh,

Odd man out needs convincing that this would be good for them to go or that their grandfather would want them there or that this would be healing or seeing all their friends and family again or being in this space would be connecting or restoring.

So now it's on me as the person who asked if they're going to convince odd man out to go,

Which is why you're getting these responses of Oh,

It would be so good for you to go or your grandfather would want you there or your mom needs your support or whatever other logic people are tossing your way,

Whether actually logical or illogical,

To insist that your presence be at this event.

So I'm going to ask you to stop responding that way to these messages.

Stop saying,

I'm not sure you are very sure of what you want and why you want it.

That being said,

You are not required to explain to anybody else why you're not going.

You do not have to get into,

And I'm going to make up some stories for you here because I don't know the full extent of your relationship to your grandfather,

But you don't have to respond to these messages with my grandfather was my greatest abuser in life.

He physically assaulted me.

He would get drunk and come home and do all this,

This,

That,

And the other.

You do not have to go into this is who your grandfather was to you and this was the extent of your relationship.

You do not have to explain to other people why you are not going for two reasons.

One,

Because that in a lot of ways can feel like an invasion of your privacy and things that maybe you're not ready to share with other people.

And two,

Because maybe you feel,

And this is something that I understand a lot of people who are grieving toxic people,

Abusers and assholes are mindful of,

Is you don't want to taint other people's relationships with the person who died.

So maybe your grandfather's coworker had a great relationship with him and they,

You know,

Would go out after work and drive around and talk about life and maybe it was a fabulous relationship and it would hurt them in some way to know the full extent of who your grandfather was to you.

And maybe you don't want to be that bearer of bad news for that person.

You're like,

I'm not willing to take on that role in this person's life.

And that's okay.

You do not have to be that bearer of bad news for somebody who had a good relationship with your grandfather.

Something that's been remarkable to me as I have watched my aunts grieve my grandfather is something that they shared with me after his death and that I knew my grandfather as,

You know,

Kind of this like this grumpy old man who was really lovely and kind of routine oriented and playful and dirty joke telling like fart jokes with us as,

As we were growing up and he'd always have kids cereal in the house and he would take us out and show us his farm equipment and,

And just enjoyed being a grumpy old grandparent was,

Was his vibe.

And we didn't see him very often.

And he was a beloved part of my life.

And he died when I was in the fifth grade.

And something I am hearing more of as I'm getting into my thirties.

So this is more than more than 15 years later,

After his death,

My aunts are sharing stories of their negative relationships with him.

As a father,

He was not the greatest person in the world to them.

I won't go into too much detail,

But the ways that he showed discipline and the ways he failed to show love and ways that they needed to receive it are things that,

That really hurt them and things that they remember in years going forward.

And it was jarring to them.

They've told me to be at his funeral and to be surrounded by all these people he worked with and all these people that he knew as distant relatives,

Who,

Who just praised who he was as a man for many people,

He was their greatest mentor or their confidant or the person who financially helped him out when,

When their farm was failing.

There were so many things that he did that made him a good person and a good man in the eyes of so many people.

And yet my aunts,

His own children did not necessarily have that relationship with him.

And it's not that it's all or nothing.

It's not,

It's not a hundred percent bad or a hundred percent good in this case,

In the story of my family.

And I knew him as an entirely different person than my aunts did.

And as my mother did,

And,

And I think there's just a lot of room and space here to acknowledge the complexity of who,

Who people are to us.

But that's not your job to explain to everybody who's asking you if you're going to the celebration of life.

So I want to give you an alternative.

Something you can say when people ask you,

Are you going to the celebration of life in February?

You can say,

No,

I have found my own ways of honoring my grandfather's death.

So I will not be attending.

And that's all you need to say.

Another way of saying this is I'm not going to be there that weekend,

But I am working with a grief support group to find my own ways of honoring my relationship with him or releasing my grief or coping with his loss or however you'd like to phrase that.

So you can say,

I have already found my own ways to do this,

Or I'm working with another group to,

To find ways to do this.

You can wish them well.

You can say,

I hope seeing all of his friends and family together in one place brings you peace.

I hope you hear some wonderful stories of him or get to share ones of your own.

I hope it brings back a lot of fond memories for you.

You do not have to relay a sense of judgment or dismissal about the fact that they're going.

You're like,

I'm happy for you that you're going.

I feel this,

This will,

This will bring about something that you need,

Or I hope it will be helpful to you as you go.

I hope it will be healing for you.

But for me,

As for me in my house,

We ain't going.

And we have found our own ways to,

To cope with his loss.

And that's all you have to say.

And if people push you for more information,

You can say something like,

I'm not ready to share that.

Or that's not something I share publicly,

Which makes it sound like as Gretchen Rubin would phrase it,

A personal rule.

You can say,

That's just not a story I share publicly with anybody.

I have a personal rule that I do not divulge that part of my life to anybody,

Except maybe my grief group,

My therapist,

And people tend to respect things like that.

And if they badger you for going or not going,

You can say,

I need you to respect this boundary.

And if you can't respect this boundary,

I'm going to leave this conversation,

I will no longer be responding to your messages or your texts or your calls or your emails or however they're trying to get in touch with you.

You have the right to draw that protective circle around yourself,

Especially as you're grieving.

Another thing I want to mention to odd man out is that if people respond well,

To you saying you're not going to the celebration of life that you found other ways to honor your grandfather and they're like,

Oh,

Okay.

I hope that's healing for your heart or however they phrase it.

You can say something like thanks for supporting my decision not to go.

And if you like them enough,

If you feel supported by them and your grief,

Odd man out,

I would encourage you to invite them to follow up with you.

You can say something like,

No,

I'm not going to the celebration of life.

I'm finding other ways to honor him.

But I wonder if you and I could get coffee in like a month or two to talk about my grandfather or to talk about our shared grief or shared experience of him.

Maybe you're not the only one in your family who's had this experience or who has a similar complicated grief over him or grief with multiple layers over the person that he was in life.

Or somebody may respond of like,

Oh,

Okay,

That makes perfect sense.

I can,

I can see how you got there.

I can see why you're not going.

It makes sense to me that you would not be present for his celebration of life.

You can say something like,

Well,

I would love to follow up with,

With a phone call.

Maybe sometime next week,

What are you up to?

So you can open yourself to connecting with people who knew your grandfather without having to show up for this one specific ceremony.

Yes,

Your absence will be noticed.

No,

It does not have to mean the end of all relationships with everybody who's at that service or at that ceremony.

It's a very paradoxical balancing act.

So if you can make room for this in your heart,

That there are people who will go to the celebration of life,

Who can make room for the complex nature of your relationship to your grandfather and still want to support you as a grieving person.

If you get that vibe from them,

Or if they clearly state,

I get why you're not going.

Your grandfather was a mean old guy to me as well.

And he was also one of my greatest mentors.

Balancing the two,

But would love to catch up.

I wonder what it would be like for you to make space for those people in your life who can hold all of the complexity of that relationship and honor all of your grief as well.

That's a really special treasure to find that in anybody,

Whether they be one of your relatives or somebody that your grandfather knew in life.

It's really a gift to interact with people who can hold all of that at once and,

And understand that showing up at one event does not mean you didn't love a person or that they didn't influence your life or that you don't miss them.

Because all of those things can still be true,

Even if the person you're grieving is somebody that you might consider a less than loved one.

This is a really heavy question.

I am so glad that you wrote in with this because I think there are many more people than say it out loud who are grieving somebody that was not kind to them in life,

To say the least.

And there is this societal pressure to show up,

To be a body and a face at a public event,

Grieving this person.

And if you're not,

Then it opens the door to drama and suspicion and gossip and all of these other things that we wrap in so much unpleasantness surrounding a death.

I so deeply trust your knowing of yourself.

I do not know the whole story.

I trust you as the grieving person who knows and can imagine what it would feel like to be in that room with all of those people singing your grandfather's praises and missing the fact that he is gone.

And I can hear through your words how painful that would be for you.

It is okay to avoid this kind of pain,

To not put yourself through this kind of pain when you're grieving.

It is okay to not go.

It's okay to find ways to grieve your grandfather and the ways he was not kind to you in your own way.

It's okay to surround yourself with the support of this grief support group and your friends,

Which I am so glad that you have.

And it's okay to very clearly state,

No,

I'm not going,

But I hope we can catch up soon.

I am so incredibly proud of you for writing in with this.

And I wish you so well.

I hope you'll circle back with me in February.

So long.