OP, take the high road. Here is one possible playlist for you.
- Apologize for not being able to make it to the funeral. - Speak good things about the 'dead relative'. He was funny, adventurous, curious, a good friend, a good nephew, a good cousin, etc. - Help in the busy work. Washing dishes, cleaning up, warming and serving dishes. Do the hostess work. This will keep you too busy to get into controversy. - "No comment. This is too raw for me. I am here for my sister, her family and all the loved ones. May God give us the strength to withstand this tragedy. - No heart to hear talk with anyone. You need to do a lot of physical work so that you do not open your mouth, do that. - No rehashing the racist comment of your nephew. Do not ignore him, do not boycott him etc. Be very very kind and accepting of him. This will actually confuse and shame him more and he will repent in the correct way. - Share this strategy with your DH and kids. This is how you all will behave. - If more drama ensues, you and your kids will withdraw to your hotel without making a scene or responding. - Needless to say - stay in a hotel. |
Well OP isn't actually saying that to her sister, she is saying that is what she is thinking and wants to NOT say that to her sister. You clearly think unkind things about people, AND you pile onto them while they are grieving. Based on your example, OP should walk up to her sister and tell her she is a racist, bad parent. |
OP, I am very sorry for your loss. This is a hard situation and I appreciate you are doing your best under the circumstances. I know what it's like to live far away from family, and that adds a complexity a lot of people don't understand unless they have been there.
Two things that stick out to me about your post: "pursuing an extreme sport that none of us, except for my sister, thought the child should be involved in. In fact, she and my mother had a huge argument just after New Year's during which my mother yelled at her that the kid was going to get himself killed. " - this sounds like a controlling family dynamic in which your sister was/is not respected as the parent. You say "none of us, except for my sister" - whelp, she was kind of an important player in this scenario. This wasn't abuse or neglect. At a certain point you have to acknowledge you really can't control how another person parents their child, and treat them with the appropriate respect. -"We're not forgetting what the other kid said, and our trust in that kid remains extremely low, but we're also not forgetting that that kid is grieving the loss of a sibling, so we won't be cold under the circumstances." It sounds like in your family, passive aggression is acceptable except in the face of horrific tragedy. That's pretty toxic and unhealthy for your child. It's totally fair not to choose to spend a lot of time with someone that doesn't treat you with respect, but to hold onto that anger like this is not. Your child is, unfortunately, going to encounter a lot of racist people in their lives. Sometimes the racism will be overt and sometimes less so. They can't just indefinitely ignore everyone, they have to find another to deal with it and part of that will be recognizing that people are fallible, our society sucks and especially work to not internalize the racism. |
I appreciate the OP is responding here and reflecting. I'm not as charitable toward the posters calling her vile etc. She's asking about one very specific aspect of a very complicated dynamic, and she's intellectualizing the entire thing, so simpletons are drawing conclusions not in evidence.
OP, among the dreck you've gotten good advice. I'd add to think through things that make you calm - do you need exercise? Do you need alone time? Do you need dumb TV time? Whatever it is, build that into your schedule, privately, so you have an outlet (and for your kid, too). Obviously it's hard to be like, "we're going to the movies!" when intense emotional things are happening, but needing some private time and going into your room (or better back to the hotel) and watching a movie with headphones might do the trick. Also - throwing yourself into physical labor - going to the store to stock up on toilet paper and paper towels, loading the dishwasher, sweeping the front porch, whatever it is takes oyu out of the action. |
She started her sob story all about herself and her kid. This is not someone deeply grieving. She doesn’t even feel too bad for her sister. Yuck. |
Since you brought it up, you’re the one sockpuppeting. The irrational hatred and “yuck” and “gross” give it away. Grow up, who writes like this? |
+1 to all of this. The judgment is just falling off of you. Maybe your sister is so caught up in her grief that she won't notice, but you are so in the wrong here. |
Sorry OP. Go back to hating your sister and blaming her for the death of her son. |
Not the same thing , but my sister's famly had something very tragic happen to them. It was 20 years in the making and i and others have been warning them for a long time and we were always ignored. Personally, I try to help, but I need to keep a distance because the more I help, the more I see these negative patterns and the undoing of any help that I put in. I share this because I am angry with my sister. And I can't move forward until I deal with it so I am in therapy. My sister is not in a place to have that convo.
OP< I think you may be angry too. Seek outside support, but be there in a way that is not too consuming for your sister. |
As I said: you, personally, have definitely NEVER experienced unsightly and unseemly and contradictory emotions towards a family member. You regard this as so much a given that you can't even imagine directly addressing that issue, you're directly onto ad hominem with no steps in between. Again, a shockingly low amount of experience reflected on this board in having more than one thing be true at a time. |
OP isn't grieving. But the last thing I'd be thinking if my nephew is that my brother is some childish word like "dumbass". |
OP I’d encourage you to take a different perspective on the kid was is an extreme sport that I didn’t approve of him doing and I’m mad my sister let him do this.
People who are passionate outdoors people, who excel at what others define as extreme sports whether it’s rock climbing, mountaineering, surfing, diving, mountain biking, etc are following something they love. The west coast has a lot of this compared to the east coast. Your nephew wasn’t reckless or irresponsible. Most people in those sports take them very seriously and are laser focused when they do them. Accidents happen though and accidents can happen anywhere. Realize that your nephew died doing something he loved not died doing something your sister shouldn’t have allowed him to do. Show your sister support and respect your nephews memory by not disparaging what he loved. |
Whatever, people are allowed to have complicated feelings about family when they’re grieving. It’s not like she went up to her sister and said that. You OTOH are a huge dumba$$ for insulting an anonymous person who’s hurting and looking for ways to deal with this situation with compassion. |
Did you read the OP? In what way is OP hurting because her kid got called a name years ago? Maybe you need to read the OP again. |
+1 this PPs are the ones actively attacking a grieving person (and then claiming she's not grieving, which is obvious BS). OP should work on not blaming her sister (private or otherwise) for her nephew's passing. The PPs should work on trying to be decent human beings. |